School food drives have always been a vital source of food collection for PV Community Food Bank. They serve as a lifeline to at-risk families within the boundaries of the Paradise Valley Unified School District. This includes charter and private schools within the Paradise Valley Unified School District boundaries.
School food drives also promote team building and a strong sense of community among the students at PV Schools. In 2019, school food drives brought in over 60,000 pounds of food.
During the 2020 school year, most learning took place online, which greatly reduced food drive collection. This forced the food bank to purchase more food than ever before during its history.
With the return to in-person learning, we are seeing an increase in school food drives and are hopeful that more schools will participate this year. School-sponsored food drives play a major role in helping us feed our hungry neighbors.
If you would like to schedule a food drive at your school, please email us at directorpvcfb@gmail.com
Fill out the form below, and we can help you start a food drive!
In 2006, the Paradise Valley Unified School District joined forces with the PV Community food bank to launch a new program for Title 1 School students who were going hungry on weekends.
Although these children received free meals during the school week, they had little or no food support on the weekend and often arrived to school on Monday feeling lethargic and unable to focus on learning.
In partnership with the PV School District, the food bank created the Weekend Backpack Program. The program provided at-risk children with non-perishable, nutritious items that constituted two breakfasts, two lunches and snacks. The child picked up the backpack at school on Friday and was asked to return it to school on Monday. The PV Food Bank collected the bags, refilled them and then returned them to the schools on Friday.
Many students would forget to return their backpacks on Monday, creating a lag in handing them out for the upcoming week. As the program expanded, the food bank streamlined the process by eliminating the backpacks and using recyclable plastic bags instead.
The PV Community Food Bank has been an integral part of Paradise Valley Unified School District’s school nurses provision of services to their students and families.
On a regularly scheduled basis, the food bank delivers juice and crackers to the nurses’ offices, as well as weekend food supplies for families in need through the Weekend Food4Kids Backpack program.
Through this partnership, nurses provide students with much needed food provisions to ensure proper nutrition and increase students’ attentiveness and performance in the classrooms.
Nurses throughout PV Schools are grateful for the support of the PV Community Food Bank and all they do for their students and families.
We donate supplies for our School Nurses. This costs about $5,000 dollars a year!
PV Community Food Bank’s mission is to provide food assistance to those individuals who are living in northeast Phoenix with food insecurity and hunger on a daily basis and who live in the 98 sq miles of the PV Unified School District.
We are a 501©(3) non-profit all volunteer food bank. All gifts are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
The food bank also qualifies for the Arizona State Tax Credit. Give to the Community Food Bank and receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on your Arizona state return.
You can now quality for up to $400 if you file as a single person, or up to $800 if you file jointly.
