More than 100 South Bend children received free weekend meals Friday at Madison STEAM Academy.

Kelly Cares foundation teamed up with the University of Notre Dame and presented a $10,000 check to Cultivate Culinary School to provide weekend meals for kindergarten and first-grade students.

Students were given insulated backpacks containing eight nutritious meals.

"These kids, these are meals they need. It will make an impact, if not long-term along the studies of academics, for sure your physical health is going to be better," co-founder of Kelly Cares Foundation Paqui Kelly said.

With the efforts of Cultivate Culinary, the food included in each meal has been rescued from restaurants and venues that have prepared food they did not serve.

"If I serve an event for 3,000 people and only 1,500 show up, that's a lot of food I made that nobody's going to eat," Cultivate Culinary co-founder Danny Z. said.

Prior to distribution, the food is properly cooled, sealed and put in the freezer.

"Before we came along, it would go to the dumpster. Now, we go rescue that food," he said.

The free meal service program is the first of its kind and hopes to alleviate hunger and food insecurity.

The program will continue to run weekly until May 31, with the goal of expanding the program into the 2019-2020 academic year.