Feeding Hungry Kids in Scotia-Glenville

Through our partnership with First Reformed Church of Scotia, the Regional Food Bank, Concerned for the Hungry, the Schenectady Foundation, the Scotia Glenville school district and countless individual donors and volunteers, 75 Food-insecure families in the Scotia Glenville School district receive weekend backpacks through the school year and will receive boxes of food through the summer. Assisting with this program is a wonderful way to begin to get to know Trinity folk and be part of our commitment to mission.

Just prior to the summer of 2015, Trinity’s Mission Committee was generally concerned about hungry kids who might not live close enough to summer lunch sites to be able to benefit from that ministry. As we began to explore options, one member of the committee shared about the Hunger Backpack program that existed at the school she teaches at. As our conversation prayerfully evolved, we learned more and more about this program, happening in many districts, and wondered whether it could be of benefit in Scotia Glenville. One committee member called the superintendent, who instantly exclaimed, “We were just discussing this last night at a meeting, how wonderful it would be to have this program available for food insecure families in Scotia!” We invited folks from the Duanesburg church that was coordinating the program in that school district, to tell us how they managed it all. As the committee gathered together after that meeting and subsequent logistical conversations with the Regional Food Bank, in the midst of our very Presbyterian discussion of pros and cons, one of our newest members said, “Let’s just do it!!!” to which everyone at the table said, “Yes. Let’s just do it.” And so the Scotia-Glenville backpack program was born. We started out doing 30 backpacks, 15 we were able to cover the cost of, and another 15 that Concerned for the Hungry offered to pay for if we’d do that assembling. In the beginning we had more volunteers every week than we knew what to do with! Over time, that’s evened out to a schedule that involves Trinity members and friends from age 2 to 82+.

A year or so later, the First Reformed church asked us for information and advice on how to get started, and an additional 30 families were added, later they were able to increase that, so that as many as 90 children receive backpacks each week.

In 2018, we were asked, along with First Reformed, to help with a pilot program, a Food Pantry at the HS, where HS kids could discreetly choose food for themselves and their families as needed. At the time, we were one of only 4 districts in the state to be doing this. This has been tremendously successful, as together with FRC we have funded and as needed, picked up food for the pantry.

Exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, the need in the community had increased greatly, with unemployment and other reductions in income and ability to acquire food. With support from the school district and still in partnership with First Reformed Church, we have continued to supply backpacks through the end of the school year, and FRC has also been supplying weekly boxes of food to 75 families in the district.

During the summer, we will be partnership directly with FRC and the Food Bank so that the food boxes will continue, with the goal of assisting all food-insecure families in the district.

God has been with us through every step of this journey, and continues to lead and guide us, as we continue to take one step at a time, doing more than we ever thought we could.