Texas ranks third in the nation for food insecurity, and many children facing hunger rely on school lunch as their only meal of the day. Fort Bend nonprofit Lunches of Love helps fill the gap when children are out of school and would otherwise not know where and when their next meal would come.
Lunches of Love will be able to serve 133,333 lunches to more than 4,300 children in Fort Bend County after receiving the most public votes during the Reliant Gives campaign from June 10-16. Reliant employees recently surprised the nonprofit with a donation of $100,000 on June 18.
Reliant Gives Vote, Reliant's crowd-sourced, charitable giving program, was launched in 2016 and has since reached $1 million in donations. Since 2016, funds have been awarded to 24 deserving nonprofits, impacting over 140,000 lives across the state of Texas. The program allows the public to vote and direct company donations to three nonprofits, which are nominated by employees.
The organization with the second most votes was Shriners Hospitals for Children - Houston, which received $30,000 from the Reliant Gives Vote program. Bo's Place had the third most votes and was presented with $20,000.
"These three organizations each make a powerful and unique impact in Houston, filling needs in our community that are so critically important," says Reliant president Elizabeth Killinger. "I'm so grateful to our thoughtful employees for nominating such deserving organizations and I'm thrilled our company can support causes that are important to both our employees and communities."
Lunches of Love provides free nutritious sack lunches to children in Fort Bend County during weekends and extended school holidays such as spring break, summer, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Hunger impairs children's health in significant and long-lasting ways, including impeded growth and development, poor immune systems, mental health, and lower test scores. The $100,000 donation will provide thousands of lunches to children in Fort Bend County as well as allow the organization to add a sustainable garden at the facility to teach children about freshly grown fruits and vegetables.
Shriners Hospitals for Children – Houston provides care for children in the specialty areas of orthopedics, spinal cord injury, and cleft lip and palate, regardless of a family's ability to pay.
Bo's Place delivers a variety of grief support programs, information, and resources for bereaved children, families, and adults at no cost. Bo's Place operates on the belief that it is helpful and healing for grieving children and adults to share their stories, memories, experiences, thoughts, and feelings with those who can understand their journey. The organization offers the only free ongoing grief support program in the greater Houston area for children and their families.
