Hunger Super Heroes

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Laura Zastrow Photography

The past few summers while school is out, Goodman Community Center has collected and distributed food for families with school-age kids through its Hunger Heroes program. This year the center is preparing for the start of the school year (however it takes place) by hosting a special donation drive weekend for school supplies, personal care items and food. Items can be dropped off at the Ironworks Building; find the shopping list and guidelines here.

press release: The Goodman Community Center’s annual Hunger Heroes campaign is back, and it’s supersized this year. The Center aims to collect food, school supplies and personal care items for more than 300 families, to ensure they start the new school year with everything they need.

“This is an uncertain and stressful time for everyone in our community, and it’s even more stressful for families who aren’t sure how they’re going to pay for basic necessities,” said GCC Corporate Giving Manager Jon Lica. “This year’s Hunger Super Heroes hopes to alleviate some of that stress by providing those basic essentials.”

The Goodman Center is encouraging community members to gather items from three shopping lists and deliver them to the Center on Saturday, Aug. 1, and Sunday, Aug. 2, between 9am and 1pm. All delivery will be contact-free. The Center is setting up the same system they use for the drive-thru food pantry, only rather than picking up items, people can drop them off in a safe, no-contact environment. Online financial donations are also being accepted.

“We’ve had a lot of success distributing food via our food pantry since COVID-19 hit, and we’ve been able to do it in a safe way,” said Lica. “We plan to use this model to collect what we hope will be hundreds of donations over two days.”

Demand for services has increased at the Goodman Center since the start of the coronavirus. The food pantry is serving between 200 and 400 households each week, compared to an average of 120 households per week in a pre-COVID world. One of the biggest requests from food pantry patrons are household supplies, like laundry detergent and cleaning supplies, as well as baby items such as diapers.

Other ways the Goodman Center is serving the community during this pandemic:

• Hosting kids age 3 to 18 in summer activities. Preschool, elementary, middle and high school students are coming to the Center for educational and fun activities that let them be kids in these difficult times, as well as let their parents focus on work or school. Extra precautions are in place to ensure the safety of all students and staff.
• Engaging our older adult community. In addition to delivering meals and groceries to seniors and calling seniors to check in, the Center is offering virtual programming, including gentle exercise, yoga and bingo. They are also hosting a physically distanced drive-thru coffee hour every Friday all summer long.
• Delivering weekly meals. The Center delivers more than 1,400 meals to seniors and families on Madison’s north and east sides each week. Seniors and families also get a bag of groceries once per week.
• Providing supplies to local school families. Before the end of the school year, GCC hosted a school supply and personal care item drive to benefit families in need from Emerson and Lowell elementary schools. We distributed supplies to more than 400 families.
• Supporting families. Staff have continued to check in with program families to see if they need anything. Many of our families were provided with supplies from our own collection early in the quarantine, and now staff are on frequent communication to ensure families feel safe sending their children to summer camp at the Center.

Find more information about Hunger Super Heroes, including our shopping lists, at goodmancenter.org/hunger.