Students Feeding Students (SFS) is a student-led initiative at OPRF High School to address the invisible food insecurity at the school. This spring, we put in multiple snack cabinets throughout the school that are accessible to everyone.
This is the first phase of a long-term effort to address hunger at OPRF High School.
We believe every student should have stigma-free access to food, and our philosophy is rooted in solidarity, not charity.
With the support of over 100 individual community donors, state Senator Don Harmon, and Beyond Hunger, we have been able to demonstrate the need and success of the snack cabinet program.
As of May 13, we have stocked 4 cabinets every day, with over 1,000 snacks a day. In total, we have distributed more than 12,000 nutrient-dense USDA smart snacks.
On May 21, we took a survey of 475 students and found that nearly 80% of students had seen the cabinets. And about 40% had taken a snack, or 1,300 students. The main reason students who knew of the cabinets hadn’t yet gotten a snack was that the cabinets were already empty.
We have established a community of care around the cabinets. Our student volunteers logged 110+ check-ins with the cabinets to ensure they operated smoothly. Students are treating the cabinets with respect, taking what they need, throwing away their wrappers in the trash cans, and looking out for each other.
Our project is the most ambitious one that currently exists in any high school across the country, and it can serve as a model for other schools. However, we can only continue this with the explicit financial support from the district. Our request is modest (less than $200,000 for the entire school year). We are asking for administration and board consideration to address a basic human need and help us end the stigma around hunger and reduce food insecurity among students at our school.
We urge school leadership to bring our proposal to the full District 200 Board of Education for a vote at the next board meeting to fund this initiative for next year.
Gianluca Maccaferri
Oak Park