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Cooke's New Food Pantry Provides Nourishment and Opportunity

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Explore the heartwarming collaboration between Cooke School and The Kids' Table, as they unveil a transformative food pantry initiative. Witness how this partnership not only provides essential nourishment to the community but also offers invaluable job opportunities for students, fostering growth and empowerment in a spirit of togetherness.

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In the heart of Northville Public Schools, Cooke School stands as a beacon of hope and opportunity. Known for its special education center program, Cooke is now taking on a new role in the community. It's not just about providing meals, but about fostering community and creating opportunities for growth. So Beth Santer had the idea and she came to us at Cooke saying that she would love to launch a food pantry. We were all really excited about it, so when they asked me if I would be the point person, I said absolutely and now here we are. The Kids' Table, a local nonprofit, partnered with Cooke School to make this vision a reality. The Kids' Table is less than a year old, it started in April of 23 and it is a non-profit with the mission of giving kids the resources they need to thrive, whatever that ends up being, in this case it's food. At the heart of this initiative lies in the students, diligently working in the food pantry, gaining invaluable skills and experience. So we have all of our post-secondary students who are signed up for different time slots to come work in our food pantry and they're working on skills such as stocking shelves, loading boxes using templates, actually assembling cardboard boxes. Martha Michalak, president of The Kids' Table, emphasizes the dual purpose of the food pantry. Our vision was feeding children, Beth's vision was two-pronged in that we could feed children and we could also help students learn and that's what's happening here, these students who are working here are getting a learning experience and a work experience. I want turn. Here Corey, can you put that in the box. They build the boxes, they take the boxes, they deliver the boxes to people's cars. So they're getting real-world experience and we're feeding kids, so it's a win-win. It was very profound to see our students giving back to the community. You can tell on our students' faces that they are excited about this opportunity as well, that they're engaged with it and seeing the family's reaction too to our students and just everything about it has been so great and we're really excited about this opportunity. I know right now we have 20 families in the program, so we are feeding 20 families once a month, but I know Sydnee is interested in you know finding more families and it's just a case of word-of-mouth and letting everybody know that this exists and it's open to all Northville Public School families. Cooke's food pantry, a testament to the power of community and compassion. Together we're not just providing meals, we're nurturing growth, one box at a time. For Northville Public Schools, I'm Katie Rork, the district Communications specialist.

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Cooke's New Food Pantry Provides Nourishment and Opportunity

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