Free Food is Always on the Menu

Caring for the community is one way the Chartwells K12 team at Tolleson Elementary School District serves up happy and healthy every day. The passionate school lunch heroes have worked hard to ensure hunger isn’t something families in Tolleson, Arizona, need to worry about. When school isn’t in session, the dining team provides Student Weekend Food Boxes. The Boxes feature a rotating variety of fresh produce, proteins, and snacks to help supplement meals at home. In addition to feeding students, the team partnered with St. Mary’s Food Bank for the past five years to serve 300 families through the Food Bank’s bi-monthly free food distribution.

When the Tolleson community was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chartwells team continued to keep kids fed. By setting up 13 distribution sites in locations across town, they were able to serve meals when schools shut down in the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year and into 2020-2021. During that time, they served over 3 million meals to the district’s 3,000 students.

In June 2021, the Chartwells team had another opportunity to help the students and families who depend on them. The global anti-hunger organization Feed the Children partnered with the district and the K12 team to bring one of their 10-city tour stops across the country to Tolleson. Feed the Children’s city stops were planned in high-need communities to distribute food, school supplies, books, and other essentials to ensure families had what they needed. After months of helping to plan the event, the Chartwells team, volunteers, and Feed the Children leaders gathered at Porfirio H. Gonzales Elementary School in the district. They handed out $200,000 worth of items to feed 400 families.

Following the event, Feed the Children worked with the Tolleson K12 team to set up a pantry for the summer at the elementary school so students and families could come by whenever they needed to help them succeed.