A St. Petersburg-based nonprofit brought some summer sunshine into the lives of hungry area children Wednesday, delivering meals made up of surplus FEMA food from Hurricane Irma.
- Food delivered by The Kind Mouse volunteers
- Juvenile Welfare Board partnered with FEMA to get food distributed
- More than 26,000 children county-wide receiving the meals
Volunteers with The Kind Mouse meandered their way into the Delores M. Smith Academy in St. Petersburg to make the deliveries.
The Juvenile Welfare Board partnered with FEMA to get the food and local partners like The Kind Mouse distributing the meals.
Shakelia Beaton, whose four-year-old daughter Taliyah received one of the meals today, told us she was grateful for the effort.
"It's actually a good thing because I'm a mother that works very late,” said Beaton. “[Taliyah] expects to go to the store everyday and have snack time, and the majority of the time I'm not always there to do that, so with them coming home with a snack box, it's a great thing."
More than 26,000 children across Pinellas County will be receiving the meals as part of the effort to distribute the surplus food.
"It just feels good all around,” said 14-year-old volunteer Dexter Schneider. "It just feels good being able to give kids food when sometimes if they don't have it."
The meals are already making a big difference in the lives of children at the daycare.
"These boxes are going to make such a great difference in the community and I just, I'm just so happy that my site is a place that children can actually come to receive these things," said Academy owner/director Delores Smith.
"It's very important to me," Beaton added. "I mean, it's touching."