Campus Kitchen at Washington and Lee was awarded a $15,500 grant from the Altria Companies Employee Community Fund to support its weekend backpack snack programming for students at local schools and to help supply CKWL’s mobile-food pantries, which operate throughout Rockbridge County.
CKWL’s backpack program is intended to diminish the meal gap that students eligible for free or reduced lunch experience on weekends. The program supports nearly 700 students from across the area who receive a backpack each week containing nutritious and filling snacks to be consumed over the weekend.
The mobile-food pantries are an expansion program that focuses on distributing fresh and non-perishable food items monthly to remote areas of Rockbridge County, serving members of the community who have difficulty accessing the brick-and-mortar food pantries.
“The mobile-food pantry is an ideal fit for remote communities in the area,” said Jenny Davidson, co-curricular service coordinator for CKWL. “By setting up in community centers we are able to reduce the transportation barrier for our clients to access nutritious food.”
Campus Kitchen at Washington and Lee is one of the area’s largest and most effective hunger-fighting organizations and provides over 1,000 community members with food assistance each year. Since 2006, CKWL has served more than 262,700 meals and recovered over 413,000 pounds of food that otherwise would have been sent to landfills.
The Altria Companies Employee Community Fund is a unique employee-giving program with every aspect managed directly by Altria Group employees—from fundraising to grant-making. Since 2001, ACECF has fulfilled 1,887 grants totaling $49.8 million. In 2016, ACECF awarded 84 grants totaling $2.53 million. Altria Group is a Fortune 200 company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.
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