Till every belly is full

About 200 kids will have full bellies each weekend for the rest of the summer as the West Texas Food Bank distributes food bags at the Odessa Boys and Girls Clubs.

The deal, which is a partnership between the Boys and Girls Club and the Food Bank and sponsored by Dallas-based First Choice Power, seeks to provide nutritious meals for hungry kids over the weekend.

“There’s really a gap between Friday and Monday,” Catherine Carlton said. Carlton is a manager of marketing and media relations for First Choice Power.

Boys and Girls Club Executive Director David Chancellor said the program bridges this gap between the club, the schools and home. He said when kids are at school they’re receiving nutritious meals but often on the weekends, they have nothing to eat or are only eating junk food.

“We’ve identified kids that won’t have food over the weekend to take part in this program,” Chancellor said, “ but this program is really geared toward nutrition.”

Iridian Vasquez, 7, comes to the Boys and Girls Club every day. She said she would be “very happy” to receive a bag of food even though it won’t contain her favorite food — menudo.

A truck arrived at the club with boxes full of bags to distribute. Inside each bag was a variety of food including canned lasagna, juice, cereal, milk, crackers and other assorted goods. The food is meant to provide two meals a day for two days.

“One in four kids in Texas doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from,” Brittany Adams said. Adams is a representative of First Choice Power. Adams and Carlton said they felt that addressing the childhood hunger problem in Texas was a worthy cause to pursue. The company has partnered with various food banks around the state and will visit many regions. This partnership will provide one bag of food a week for each child in the program until the end of summer.

Lee Pipkin, the interim executive director for the West Texas Food Bank, said they wanted to include some “kid friendly food items to take home.”

“We just want kids to enjoy themselves,” he said. “If they’re worried about being very hungry, they can’t enjoy themselves during the summer.”