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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Illinois Athletics is partnering with Champaign-Urbana based charity Feeding Our Kids for a special community service project aimed at assisting the food insecure in the community. This initiative will feature various donation opportunities for fans at Illinois men’s and women’s basketball games, as well as a community service day for Fighting Illini student-athletes and staff.
Illinois Athletics will be hosting food donation drives at five home basketball games starting on January 8:
Jan. 8 – men’s basketball vs. Penn State
Jan. 9 – women’s basketball vs. Iowa
Jan. 11 – men’s basketball vs. USC
Jan. 19 – women’s basketball vs. Michigan State
Jan. 23 – men’s basketball vs. Maryland
On January 13-14, Division of Intercollegiate Athletics staff and student-athletes will spend two days at the Eastern Illinois Food Bank assembling food packages and delivering them to local schools.
Feeding Our Kids is seeking donations of individually wrapped items such as fruit cups, peanut butter, raisins, pudding, squeezable yogurt, mac n cheese, Chef Boyardee, rice packets, granola bars, canned soups, Vienna sausages, and more. The full list can be found here.
According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap project, Champaign County has an overall food insecurity rate of 10.5% and a food insecurity rate of 12.2% for children. This means almost 27,000 residents of Champaign County are living in food insecurity.
ABOUT FEEDING OUR KIDS
Feeding Our Kids is a Champaign-Urbana area 501(c)(3) organization that provides nourishing food to food insecure school children on weekends and school holidays throughout the school year in the Champaign-Urbana area. The organization heavily relies on volunteers to pack and deliver food to over 40 schools and childhood programs. Social workers in the schools help identify which children require these services.
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