School counselor creates food pantry to help students, families
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IDAHO FALLS — A school counselor who envisioned wanting to assist students and families in need of food has created a pantry on campus.
Addie Priest has been a counselor at Eagle Rock Middle School for 10 years. She enjoys interacting with kids every day and helping them navigate life.
“They’re 12-, 13-, 14-year-olds, and they need guidance. Just figuring out how to communicate with one another, figuring out how to say sorry, figuring out how to ask for help, to advocate for yourself, just being a solid human being. To me, I think that’s the middle school skills that hopefully they take with them into life, but also in high school,” Priest said of her job.
She’s worked with many students and saw that some of them and their families struggle with food insecurities. She came up with the idea of a food pantry.
“A lot of times, families don’t have rides to come here before or after school, and the only way kids get here is on the bus. So I thought, ‘We need something here,'” she said. “How cool that would be to say, ‘Hey, we have something here for you. Would you like to go look?’ and see if there’s something that could help them right then.”
The food pantry has been several years in the making. It was just a matter of finding the space and figuring out how the pantry would have supplies.
It’s been in place since November with the assistance of the Bishop’s Storehouse from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“They are able to restock with anything … on a weekly basis,” she said. “It has kind of the essential things that a family might need. There’s lots of pasta, canned foods, sauces and fruit that’s canned.”
Also at the food pantry are laundry soap, toothbrushes, dish soap, paper towels and toilet paper.
Priest has seen a few students use it already, and she hopes that families can too. It’s free to them.
“I’ve had kids go in there, and I know they struggle with food on the weekends, and they’ve taken a thing of peanut butter, jelly, or a thing of macaroni and cheese,” Priest said. “It’s relieving to know that they have something to take with them, and I know that over the weekend, they won’t be hungry.”
She added that she hopes the pantry will not only provide food, but hygiene products, school supplies and even clothes.
Priest said people can donate to it, especially gently used clothes like socks, boots, coats, mittens, and hats.
“Our kids sometimes come to school soaking wet because they’ve walked here, so the clothes would really help,” she said.
Students and families at the school who want to use the pantry can come Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
