Updated at 11:40 a.m. – Whole Foods Markets hopes to collect enough non-perishable food items next week to stuff school buses parked in front of its five Montgomery County locations.
The food collected through the “Stuff the Bus” initiative on Wednesday will be donated to a Manna Food Center program for county elementary school students from low-income families. Manna is a Gaithersburg-based food bank.
The center’s Karen Goldberg Smart Sacks program started in 2005 and feeds about 2,450 children each week at 60 county elementary schools. The goal is to provide healthy food for children who depend on the school system’s free- and reduced-price meals program during the school week, but who may not have enough food over the weekend.
In addition to the Stuff the Bus campaign, Whole Foods will be donating 5 percent of all sales Wednesday to Manna. From about 9 a.m. Wednesday to 7 p.m., people running the campaign will hand out "wish lists" from Manna to Whole Foods shoppers. Shoppers can then purchase those items and put the items on the buses. For food safety reasons, Manna and Whole Foods will only accept donations of items just purchased in the stores.
About 40 percent of elementary school students in the county’s public school system qualify for free or reduced-price meals, an indicator of poverty. Whole Foods and Manna say a little more than 16 percent of children in the county are food insecure, meaning they lack reliable access to affordable and nutritious food.
The buses will be parked in front of the Whole Foods Market locations in Bethesda (5269 River Road), Friendship Heights (4420 Willard Ave.), Kentlands (316 Kentlands Blvd.), Rockville (11355 Woodglen Drive) and Silver Spring (833 Wayne Ave.).
