Donations and volunteers needed for MUST Ministries Summer Lunch program

Volunteers power summer lunch program

MUST Ministries Summer Lunch program provides free meals for kids in metro Atlanta over the summer — ''bridging the hunger gap'' for local students who rely on free and reduced meals during the school year.

WOODSTOCK, Ga. - Thirty years ago, a group of teachers reached out to Atlanta-based MUST Ministries. The teachers had a big worry, and MUST Ministries had a solution.

"They were concerned that students over the summer — those nine weeks — were not going to be able to eat," says Dr. Ike Reighard, president and CEO of MUST Ministries. "So, it came out of a heart of need, and now there’s about 7,000 kids a week that are having breakfast, lunch, snacks."

Those kids are getting meals through the MUST Ministries Summer Lunch program, which provides free meals for kids in metro Atlanta over the summer — "bridging the hunger gap" for local students who rely on free and reduced meals during the school year. 

Reighard says an estimated half a million meals will be distributed across eight counties (Bartow, Cobb, Cherokee, Douglas, Fulton, Paulding, Pickens, and Gwinnett) — an enormous task that requires an army of volunteers.

So, how can you help? Leaders at MUST Ministries say there are three main ways: monetary donations, food donations, and volunteering to put together meals kits and deliver them to children. And donating and volunteering is easy — we’ve got a page right here on our website, as longtime partners with MUST Ministries in the Summer Lunch program. 

We spent the morning with volunteers at Hillside Church in Woodstock putting together meal kits — chatting with them about the wonderful feeling of making a positive impact on their community. Click the video player in this article to check it out!