Children around the United States are at risk of food insecurity. More students than you might realize — as many as one in five — don’t always get enough to eat. For most of them, schools are their main source of food.

Public schools around the country serve lunches, but many of them also serve breakfast.

The families that suffer from food insecurity rely on these meals to keep their children nourished. But there’s also a problem with school meals: they’re often not enough.

While they’ve been redesigned in recent years to be healthier, the portion sizes are frequently too small to satisfy children. So, one Indiana school district has come up with a genius idea to feed its students while cutting back on food waste.

Elkhart Community Schools have partnered with a nonprofit, Cultivate, to repurpose food into meals for students.

These meals are sourced from local events, restaurants, and other places. Normally, the food would’ve been thrown out. Instead, they meals to feed hungry kids.

“Mostly, we rescue food that’s been made but never served by catering companies, large food service businesses, like the school system,” said Jim Conklin, a representative from Cultivate. “You don’t always think of a school.”

While students get breakfast and lunch at school, they’re still on their own on the weekends.

The program hopes to fill any gaps where kids wouldn’t have access to school meals.

“Over-preparing is just part of what happens,” said Conklin. “We take well-prepared food, combine it with other food, and make individual frozen meals out of it.”

Every weekend, each student receives eight frozen meals to take home.

While the program is still in its early days, organizers hope to expand it to other schools throughout the state.

“It’s making a big impact,” said Melissa Ramey, a member of the organization that came up with the program. “I am proud of that. It was heartbreaking to hear that children go home on the weekends and that they don’t have anything to eat.”

Natalie Bickel, a representative from Elkhart School District, said it was all about finding resources and using them.

“At Elkhart Community Schools, we were wasting a lot of food,” she said. “There wasn’t anything to do with the food. So, they came to the school three times a week and rescued the food.”

Other schools around the country have found additional ways to keep their students fed. Some encourage children to leave unopened food on “share tables” for others to take. Some programs ask students to bring in prepackaged food to donate.

Food insecurity doesn’t always equate to hunger, but it can lead to it.

It’s defined as having an unsteady source of food, either because of financial difficulties or other lack of access. Programs like Cultivate aim to end food insecurity and keep children fed around the United States.

If you’d like to donate to Cultivate, you can visit their website.

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Source: Scary Mommy, Parenting Isn’t Easy, YouTube