The meal drive will take place April 6 from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the West Gym at Wilmington Friends School.
Wilmington Friends School, celebrating its 275th anniversary this year, will dig into its Quaker roots with a massive meal drive Saturday.
On April 6, the culminating community service project for Wilmington Friends will play off the 275 years and aim to packaging 27,500 shelf-stable meals for families throughout Delaware.
“Food security is a basic human right that is incredibly important to us, both as a school and as a Quaker institution that values every individual,” said Head of School Ken Aldridge.
Ken Aldridge
Students, parents, staff, alumni and community members will all partake in the event.
Part of the school’s mission states that: “Wilmington Friends, a Quaker school with high standards for academic achievement, challenges students to seek truth, to value justice and peace, and to act as creative, independent thinkers with a conscious responsibility to the good of all.”
Due to the large number of meals, the private Quaker school has partnered with The Outreach Program, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide safe water, food, medical care and education to children and those in need, at home and abroad.
The Outreach Program will provide packaging supplies, packaging equipment, certified Food Safe Event Coordinators and training for the assembly line-style drive.
Wilmington Friends will purchase all necessary meal ingredients – some of the shelf-stable meals include macaroni and cheese dinners and apple cinnamon oatmeal.
To ensure the 27,500 meals reach homes, the school is also partnering with The Food Bank of Delaware for distribution.
The food bank solicits, warehouses and distributes food through a state-wide network of hunger-relief partners, including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters and other community food providers.
The school stated that it’s already fully-booked for volunteers, a good problem to have.
However, it encourages people to donate to The Food Bank of Delaware.
“Joining together to assemble 27,500 meals for the greater Wilmington community helps us connect with one another in honor of our 275th anniversary while contributing to this important cause,” Aldridge said.
Raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Jarek earned a B.A. in journalism and a B.A. in political science from Temple University in 2021. After running CNN’s Michael Smerconish’s YouTube channel, Jarek became a reporter for the Bucks County Herald before joining Delaware LIVE News.
