University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at Sarasota Extension commended All Faiths Food Bank “excellent job” when noting the work of All Faiths’ Director of Nutrition Education, Jenna Jones. The University of Florida, IFAS Extension Office along and the Family and Consumer Sciences Department and the Family Nutrition Program, have partnered with All Faith’s Food Bank on several projects for more than a decade including BackPack Kids and Growing Healthy Kids programs, School Pantries, Cooking Matters in the Community, and Summer Food Programs. In a letter following a review of the BackPack Kids program, Family and Consumer Sciences Agent Maria J. Portelos-Rometo wrote, “Ms. Jones has done an excellent job factoring the cost of each backpack while meeting all of the RDA’s nutritional requirements.” In 2014, the BackPack program provided more than 103,000 bags of food to students to take home on Fridays so they could eat over weekends and holidays. Now part of the Food Bank’s summer food programs, by mid-July of this year, more than 12,500 bags of food were distributed at 27 new summer sites. New partnerships with the Sarasota County Public Libraries, Children First, Boys & Girls Clubs, several programs of the Early Learning Coalition and others worked with All Faiths to ensure children had food all summer long. The programs and partnerships will continue to feed children as school begins again later this month.

All Faiths Food Bank