Windsor west end school sees food donations for hungry summer months

Some students in Windsor's west end are going home with boxes of food after a social media campaign called "Operational Windsor Hungry Tummy" got local businesses and people moving to fundraise and donate.

General Brock Public School received 102 boxes for the summer months. The campaign also reached out to Marlborough Public School, but it did not get approval for the donation.

"This donation coming in today just means the world to us," said Anne Adamson, principal at General Brock.

"There's not a lot of extra money in this community, and we find ourselves feeding about 75 to 100 kids each morning in our breakfast program," she said.

Across the street, there's a food cupboard at St. John's Anglican Church, she added, and that cupboard usually runs dry in the summer months.

'We knew that there was a problem'

A recent analysis by anti-poverty advocacy group Campaign 2000 showed that Windsor West had 32 per cent of children living in poverty.

The federal riding came in 15th on the list.

"We knew that there was a problem in Windsor's west end," said Marisa Guerrero from JG Drywall and Painting, a company that organized the entire campaign.

"We just wanted to give back to our city where they needed most," she said. "This is Windsor as a whole coming together."

Throughout the fundraising and collections period, businesses in the city opened their doors for people who wanted to drop off food donations.

Adamson said a lot of the families at the school receive some kind of government subsidy and there are also many newcomers to Canada.

But she wants to people to know that the kids at her school aren't any different from kids who may not have the same financial challenges at home.

"Kids are kids. And families are families," she said. "They just don't have the same advantages."