Manzanita Outreach has launched a new program offering free meals to kids in the Cottonwood and Cornville communities.
After recognizing a gap in the free and reduced meal options for kids in the Verde Valley, the nonprofit decided to create MO Packs, a program designed to provide kids with meals for the entire week. Any child under the age of 19 is eligible to receive a MO Pack, which is made up of three components.
The first thing each child will receive is five pre-made refrigerated meals, one per child in a family. The menu rotates, but each meal contains a main dish, two sides and milk. The second component is a 13-pound bag of non-perishable food items such as rice, cereal, peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, and fruit.
Ben Burke, director of operations for Manzanita Outreach, said they receive the food in bulk, and then their team sections it out into meals.
“We’re getting this food in bulk and then we’re packing a USDA-approved meal for the kids,” he said. “It is generally fairly healthy food.”
The third thing kids age 10 and under will receive is a free, age-appropriate book.
While the official first day of MO Pack distribution was July 3, Manzanita Outreach has been piloting the program with their current client base since March. Nearly 700 kids have already been receiving meals through the pilot program.
Manzanita has asked for feedback from these families to help them fine-tune the system. So far the program has received positive feedback from families, who say they like the convenience of the ready-to-eat meals and appreciate the healthier food the organization is offering.
“It’s a meaningful difference in their budgets,” Burke said. “We just think we’re going to be able to help a lot of families.”
The distribution dates are currently the same as the organization’s regular community food share. Meals can be picked up the first and third Saturday of each month from10 to 11 a.m. at the Verde Valley Christian Church in Cottonwood and 1 to 2 p.m. at Our Shepherd Lutheran Church in Cornville.
Burke said their decision to hold the distributions on the weekend was largely based on feedback they received from parents prior to offering MO Packs. He said that while schools were offering meals to kids during the pandemic, there was a lot of confusion around when food could be picked up as well as issues with parents not being able to attend a pick-up during the workweek.
“We just started talking with schools and talking with parents and interviewing them,” he said. “Nobody was doing any children’s food distribution sort of things on weekends. … So we just sort of optimized it to make it really convenient that they could pick up five days’ worth of food, plus nonperishable food, on a weekend.”
Additionally, they looked at their data and saw that while the number of distributions they were making had decreased by around half since things with the pandemic have calmed down, they have seen relatively little decline in the number of families with children utilizing their services.
There are approximately 5,000 children in the Verde Valley that are eligible for food assistance programs, and Manzanita has plans to expand its programs to Camp Verde and potentially Sedona, Rimrock and the Verde Village to help feed more of these kids over the next year.
To register to receive MO Packs, visitmopacks.org or attend a distribution the first or third Saturday of each month from10 to 11 a.m. at the Verde Valley Christian Church at 406 S. 6th Street in Cottonwood or from 1 to 2 p.m. at Our Shepherd Lutheran Church at 1090 S. Page Springs Road in Cornville.
