The mission of Middle School Family Community Service is to provide opportunities within the greater community for parents and children to volunteer together and strengthen the greater Blake community through their service.
For three years, Family Service has been partnered with Loaves and Fishes to provide nutritious meals to the hungry. Loaves and Fishes serves meals in eight different locations and provides over 320,000 meals a year. The site we serve at is located in the kitchen of Holy Rosary Church in Minneapolis. Loaves and Fishes is not associated with the church but rents out their commercial kitchen space, which is a health requirement for serving meals. The site can have anywhere from 170 to 300 people a night and typically 75% of these people are children. You can learn more about them at their website www.loavesandfishesmn.org.
The Blake Family Community Service program is responsible for creating a menu, purchasing a meal, cooking, serving and cleaning. You can participate in any way that works for your family. Due to a donation from a generous middle school family, we will be able to reimburse people for the cost of food and the main commitment from you is time. A typical meal consists of a simple menu, soup, sandwiches, fruit, dessert and milk. We purchase the food a few days in advance. On the serving date, we will arrive at the kitchen anywhere from 2:00 to 4:00 to cook the meal. Service of the meal begins at 5:15 and ends at 6:15. We are responsible for clean up and are usually done by 7:15.
It is hard to explain what an incredible experience it has been for our middle school families. For our children to work for a few hours and make a difference to that person across the table from them, maybe even a child their age, creates an enormous impact. It has helped initiate discussion and thoughtful insight from our children. Please consider volunteering for Family Community Service this year. Thank you!