JONESBORO — With a substantial segment of its student population being homeless, one of the problems Jonesboro Middle School is having to address is food insecurity.
In order to alleviate some of those problems for students in need and their families, the school is starting a food pantry later in March.
“We have a pretty large population of homelessness — about 15% of our population experiences homelessness and along with that oftentimes it’s food insecurity,” Jonesboro Middle School Principal Kimberlee Barnett said.
If students are getting regular and healthy meals, they can do better in school, have better concentration and memory, be more alert and be healthier overall.
“When students are worried about other things they’re not going to be able to study, so just knowing that when they walk through the doors that whether they have money or not they’re going to be fed breakfast, they’re going to be fed lunch,” Barnett said.
Barnett added that the school also has a food backpack program where students are given backpacks filled with food to take with them over weekends.
“Academics is what we do, but we do that after we know that everything else has been met,” she said.
Another part of the process of helping students is community partnerships. The school currently partners with three local churches that provide meals for students every week, and they help out in other ways as well.
“I don’t think we could be as successful as we are without the partnerships,” she said. “Jonesboro Middle School is successful because of the community. We have good, strong partnerships with Fairview Church, with Shiloh Church and with First Baptist-Jonesboro. They’re here not only to help our students with food insecurity needs, but they’re mentors, they come in and they support our teachers, they provide baskets at the…
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