Teachers and volunteers are making sure 600,000 students don’t go hungry during walkout

Heidi Richmond's kitchen is about to become a blur of peanut butter and jelly.

The museum marketer in her 20s offered online to make lunch sacks for students in need during the educator #RedForEd walkout. Now, she's fielding several dozen requests and could be making more than 100 sandwiches Wednesday night — that's at last count.

Richmond isn't a teacher or a parent. She's just a concerned resident who wants to support teachers in their quest for more pay and feed kids in the meantime.

"I'm a community member who really values education," she said. Later adding, "I’ve watched our communities suffer from lack of funding."

WALKOUT SCHOOL CLOSURES: Our list of schools that will close Thursday

She's a part of the legion of volunteers, teachers, parents and non-profits grabbing the peanut butter and getting to work for the 600,000 Arizona kids eligible for the free and reduced-price lunch program. They are teachers spending hours putting together snack packs, parents asking for food pantry donations and school districts working to keep their cafeterias open.

Running things from their kitchen

Richmond posted her offer to help feed kids during the walkout on a couple of Facebook groups. Soon, she was getting requests from all the way down in Tucson for sack lunches.

"Educators work so hard for our kids in the community," she said. "I wanted to help support the community so (teachers) can do what they need to do."

With each request, Richmond asks about allergies so she's not serving peanut butter to a kid with a peanut allergy. She adds them to her list and has started to configure a heat map for drop offs. The sack lunch will have a sandwich, a piece of fruit and another snack.

Her family and her significant other's family have been sucked into the peanut butter and jelly madness.

She's gotten offers for help, too. People who want to donate their time and their money. There are "plenty of folks on deck," she says, ready to grab a butter knife and a loaf of bread.

FREE/LOW-COST CHILDCARE DURING WALKOUT: See our list of options

For now, drop-offs will begin early Thursday morning. If the walkout goes into the weekend, Richmond might start to rethink her strategy into more of a food pantry box with non-perishables.

To get in touch with Richmond to ask for help or offer it, she's set up redforedmeals@gmail.com to take requests.

Teachers do all they can before walkout

Becca Martin tries to always be the teacher with the drawer full of food for the kids who need it — because she remembers as a student when she needed that teacher.

"I grew up a low-income kid myself and there’s teachers here that I’ve talked to who are in the same boat," she said. "Who appreciated that there were teachers who stuffed their bags with food."

The Dobson High English teacher doesn't want that generosity to end when she and her colleagues are away at the state Capitol starting Thursday. While some school districts are staying open for food service, Mesa, the state's largest district, will completely shutter.

Teachers across the district, including Martin, are packing up food and arranging donations to kids who depend on free and reduced-price lunch and breakfast. Nearly 60 percent of Dobson's students are eligible for the program.

Martin's colleagues aim to pack 2,000 bags of food for students full of non-perishable items to hand out in front of the school Wednesday afternoon. Students are also encouraged to turn to teachers privately if they feel embarrassed about needing the food.

Some have already asked, Martin said.

She said wants her students to know, "This is not us walking out on you, it's walking out for you."

Victoria Griffith is another Mesa teacher at Eisenhower Center for Innovation, a school where 88 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. Griffith teaches English-language development to kindergartners.

She said immediately she feared the walkout would affect students who depend on meals at school and put a call out on social media for food donations.

Her pitch earned $500, enough to make 80 bags for students filled with bread, peanut butter, oatmeal, apple sauce, granola bars, noodles, cheese crackers and juice. The items mostly don't require cooking, so if kids are left with siblings, they can eat without firing up the stove.

She's heartened by the fact that schools across the state seem to be doing similar pushes to feed kids. Griffith wants people to know why she's walking out.

"I’m doing this for my students," she said. "I’m doing this because I care for them. For many years their needs and their voice have not been heard."

For Martin, the Dobson teacher, the walkout is a little heart-wrenching. She'll miss her kids. She'll miss her classroom. But she's preparing as best she can before Thursday.

"I’m going to do everything I can to make sure they’re OK before I walk away," Martin said.

Reach reporter Lily Altavena at laltavena@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8927. Follow her on Twitter: @lilyalta.

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