Trevor’s Gift helps feed kids over holiday break

Although they aren’t able to get breakfast and a hot lunch in school, Waterloo students will have food over the holiday vacation, thanks to a generous community. Trevor’s Gift, the Waterloo backpack feeding program, sent three bags of food home with students during the days before the holiday break, helping to provide for the students and their families. Each bag contained canned fruits and vegetables, mac and cheese, tuna, cereal, juice, milk and nutritious snacks.Students in Interact and Waterloo Rotarians gathered at Waterloo Baptist Church last week to pack some of the bags of food to send home in the backpacks of 168 nutritionally needy children. The food was donated by Seneca Foods, Tops Markets, Evans Chemetics, Wadhams Trucking and the Interact students. The Interact members used funds they earned at activities throughout the year to purchase juice, fruits and nutritional snacks for their fellow students in need.“We are proud to be able to help provide this extra bag of food to Waterloo children,” said Interact leader Kathy Sigrist. “We know how important it is to ensure that our children have nutritional food over the holiday vacation.”Kaaren Gerlach, co-chair of Trevor’s Gift, said nearly 2,500 packages of food have been distributed to Waterloo students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 so far this school year. The food is purchased from Foodlink with grants from Wegmans and NutriKids and contributions from generous individuals, organizations and businesses in Waterloo.“We are grateful to so many people who make our program possible,” added co-chair Doris Wolf. “They include the Waterloo Baptist Church which provides space to store the food; our drivers, Don Peters, Jim Patsos, John King and Patty Bowen; and the teachers and administrators who distribute the food to the children each week.”It costs about $150 to feed a child for a year. Tax deductible contributions may be sent to Waterloo Education Foundation, Main Street Shop Center, Waterloo. Put Trevor’s Gift on the memo line of all checks.