Friday afternoon light filters through the kitchen of Cultivate Food Rescue in northern Indiana, where volunteers gather around tables stacked with trays of frozen meals, backpacks waiting to be filled.
These are not ordinary school lunches—but they once were. The story begins every week at Elkhart Community Schools, where countless servings of food prepared for students remain unused.
Rather than go to waste, the leftover meals are now repackaged, frozen, and sent home with children who need them most.
A Quiet Need And A Simple Solution
At Woodland Elementary in Elkhart, Indiana, many children receive free breakfasts and lunches during the week. But when the final bell rings on Friday, those meals stop—and for many families, the cupboards do too. “A lot of them are food insecure,” says Natalie Bickel, student-services supervisor for the district.
Recognizing this need, the school district partnered with Cultivate Food Rescue, a local nonprofit dedicated to rescuing unused food and converting it into nutritious meals for families in the community.
“Our goal is to feed hungry kids,” explains Jim Conklin, co-founder of Cultivate. “And we want to see improved school performance, whether it’s academic, behavior, or attendance.”
What makes this initiative especially powerful is its simplicity. It takes a problem—leftover school food—and turns it into a solution for weekend hunger. It is a bridge built from something already available.
How The Process Works
Every school cafeteria routinely prepares more food than students actually consume, leaving a surplus at the end of the day. Rather than discarding this extra food, staff gather it several times a week and send it to Cultivate’s kitchen.
There, the rescued items are sorted, paired with other ingredients, and turned into balanced frozen meals ready for children to take home.
Inside Cultivate’s kitchen, volunteers sort, portion, and freeze the meals. Each Friday, selected students receive a backpack filled with eight individually packaged frozen meals containing a protein, starch, and vegetable—mirroring the nutritional value of their school lunches.
For families like that of parent Angel Null, the program is transformative. “There’s a peace of mind to know there’s something in the fridge,” she shared. That sense of security is as nourishing as the food itself.
Scaling Kindness And Logistics
Though it began as a small pilot, the program has drawn wide attention. Cultivate Food Rescue now recovers over one million pounds of usable food each year.
The organization is also building a new 22,000-square-foot cold-storage facility to expand operations dramatically. As Conklin has said, “Hunger is not a food-supply issue. It’s a waste problem. It’s a logistics challenge.”
By fixing the logistics, the program transforms both systems—food distribution and children’s well-being. More rescued food means more consistency for families, more relief for parents, and more focus for children returning to school on Monday.
Why This Work Matters
Weekend hunger quietly affects millions of children across the United States. A child who doesn’t have access to reliable meals is more likely to struggle with focus, emotional regulation, attendance, and long-term academic performance. Food insecurity is not just hunger; it is stress—persistent and heavy.
This initiative softens that weight. It replaces uncertainty with stability by offering something simple: prepared meals waiting at home. It also tackles food waste—one of the country’s most overlooked but solvable issues.
“When they go home on the weekends and maybe they get one meal a day … I hope this is able to supplement that,” explained Melissa Ramey of the Chamber Leadership Academy.
Through cooperation between schools, nonprofits, and local volunteers, two problems—waste and hunger—are addressed at once.
Reflections On Dignity And Community
Beyond nutrition, this program delivers something profoundly human: dignity. A backpack quietly slipped into a child’s hands on Friday sends a message that someone sees them, cares for them, and wants them to thrive.
As the model expands, important questions arise. How can it be funded sustainably? How far can it grow? How many districts will replicate it? Yet one thing is already clear—when communities recognize both excess and need, solutions emerge that honor everyone involved.
Looking Ahead
Interest in the Indiana model is growing nationwide. After local news coverage, phone calls began pouring in from schools across the country wanting to learn how to replicate the program. If adopted widely, the concept could help countless families fill the weekend food gap.
For now, in Elkhart Community Schools, the partnership continues to flourish. With new infrastructure on the horizon, Cultivate Food Rescue plans to reach more children, recover more food, and strengthen its impact on the community.
A Hopeful Note
In a world often overwhelmed by scarcity narratives, this simple yet powerful collaboration offers a gentle reminder of what is possible when compassion guides innovation.
Food once destined for waste is now a source of comfort. Backpacks full of meals become carriers of hope. And children return to school on Mondays not just fed, but cared for.
It is a small story with big heart—a reminder that solutions to our most pressing problems sometimes begin with the question: “What can we do with what we already have?”
