615 children in the Steel Valley School District rely on SNAP Benefits (food stamps) for meals at home. However, the SNAP program is in jeopardy as a political fight over its funding has become a central focus of the ongoing government shutdown. In October, the Trump Administration refused to fund the program, leaving it roughly 50% funded for the month of November. Since then, a federal judge has ordered the Trump Administration to fund the program completely in November, however, the Trump Administration, which has already shown a propensity to evade court orders, has vowed to appeal that order. Moreover, the withheld federal funding, even if restored, will take some time to arrive to bolster the program. In short, there will still be 615 children in the Steel Valley – 43% of all the kids in the district that comprises Homestead, West Homestead, and Munhall – who will leave school today unsure about their next meal due to incomplete funding of SNAP.
Here at Golden Age, we have resolved to assist the good folks at the Steel Valley School District to begin collecting meals and to start raising money to keep our school district’s children from going hungry.
The Steel Valley School District will begin to implement weekend meals this week for any children who need them. Every Friday, volunteers will be sending kids home for the weekend with meals in their backpacks. The goal is to be able to provide each child with four meals per weekend, ensuring that the children will at least get two meals a day while they’re away from school. At Golden Age, we’re committed to help them meet and exceed that goal. And we’re asking for your help to do it. Here’s our action plan.
Golden Age Fundraiser: Beginning today, we will donate $1 for every beer, cocktail, or glass of wine that we sell to the Steel Valley School District in a specially ear-marked fund that will support the backpack meals project for Steel Valley School District. We will provide a public weekly accounting of how many beverages we sold on instagram (@goldenagebeer), and we’ll make a donation to the school district on Monday so that the funds can be available to purchase food for the following weekend. We intend to maintain this commitment until SNAP Benefits are fully restored.
Golden Age Food Collection: We will be putting out a shelf for in-kind food donations and then delivering those donations to Steel Valley High School every Monday, so that they can begin organizing the food to distribute to the children at the end of the week. Here is specifically what the food services administrator for the district is collecting:
Breakfast items (All items should be single serving and wrapped):
Cereal | Granola/Protein/Cereal Bars | Shelf Stable Juice | Fruit Cups | Oatmeal Packets | Pop Tarts
Lunch Items (All items should be single serving and wrapped):
Soups | Mac & Cheese Cups | Shelf Stable Heat & Eat meals (e.g. – Hormel) | Knorr Pasta/ Rice Sides | Tuna | Peanut Butter | Hamburger Helper Cups | Top Ramen/ Cup o’ Noodles | Chef Boyardee Cups | Snacks | Chips | Microwave Popcorn | Fruit Snacks | Graham Crackers (ie – Scooby Grahams) | Peanut Butter Crackers
We thank you for your consideration of this fundraiser and we hope that you’ll join us at Golden Age with any food you can spare. And please come thirsty to help us power this awesome effort that our caring Steel Valley teachers have volunteered to organize to try to remedy our government’s failure. In a country that is willing to use hungry children as political leverage, it shouldn’t be hard to need a drink or ten.
Yours,
Pete