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Northville, MI, November 5, 2023
The Board of Directors of The Kids’ Table is pleased to announce a partnership with Northville Public Schools (NPS) on a new food pantry at Cooke School that is supporting Northville families in need. This partnership grew from a conversation between Beth Santer, NPS Executive Director of Special Services, and Martha Michalak, president of The Kids’ Table, about how to best serve the families in Northville that need assistance.
“We have been working with Sydnee Klocko, a teacher at Cooke School, since August to create a food pantry in a formerly empty classroom at Cooke,” said Martha. “The Kids’ Table purchases and delivers the food in bulk to Cooke School each month and the students there do the hands-on work of packing each family’s box. This helps fulfill our mission of feeding children and it creates a learning experience for the Cooke students that they don’t have to leave the building to get.”
The first distribution was successfully completed on Thursday, Oct. 26th. These distributions will be held every month throughout the 2023-24 school year. This process is run by Cooke’s post-secondary students to help them acquire employment and community skills.
Sydnee is excited about the impact this experience is having on the Cooke students. “There are generally 6 to 10 students working in the pantry at one time,” said Sydnee. “They look forward to their time there. It can be hard to find community projects for all the students who want them, so this is a great solution.”
