About Fueled by Kids

Our Mission

Fueled By Kids is an organization committed to ending childhood food insecurity.

About Fueled by Kids

Our Mission

Fueled By Kids is an organization committed to ending childhood food insecurity.

What We Do And Why

Fueled By Kids fills the 67 hour gap between when students (most of whom are participating in the National School Lunch Program) receive lunch on Friday afternoons and again when they receive breakfast on Monday morning, alleviating the food anxiety that many of these children experience as a result of not knowing where their next meal is coming from.

A Note From Kate Mikol

GENERAL MANAGER

We began providing 65 bags a weeks for children at one school but have now grown to serve about 700 children each week at 19 schools in the Manchester School District! Our amazing growth has been the product of school guidance counselors, principals, and the superintendent communicating with each other about the great results their kids have experienced and reaching out to us to help more children and more schools. We have lots of fantastic volunteers who help us pack and deliver the bags each week, and we appreciate their help more than they know! However, the greatest challenge that Fueled by Kids faces is finding the money to support our program. The expenses of food grows as we try to reach out and help a greater number of children. Luckily, we are able to put 100% of monetary donations toward buying the food that goes inside of our bags. To donate, visit the Donate tab of our website, where there are different options of how to donate. Call me or visit the Contact Us section of our website if you are interested in getting involved in other ways!

How We Got Started

In the fall of 2016, I was sitting in a gym watching my brother’s basketball game. The lady sitting in front of us was showing photos of a cat she recently started fostering as a result of a family losing their housing on the West side of Manchester. Upon further discussion, we learned that the woman was a teacher at Parker Varney. Within her school, there were several homeless and semi-homeless families. Because of my (and my family’s) work with New Horizons, we asked about how this situation affected the kids in these homes. In her experience, it meant that many of these children did not eat over the weekend. Teachers slipped extra fruit from the cafeteria into these children’s bags on Friday in hopes that they would have something to eat over the weekend.

Over the next week, we reached out to more teachers and social workers. Through these conversations, we discovered that there were 62 children at the Parker Varney school alone who the social workers identified as likely to not have access to food over the weekend. The sadness of this situation drove us to create string bags, which we filled with food so that these children would be able to have meals throughout the following weekend.

“We are an organization that wants to address the food insecurity problems in our community.”

As I continued to have discussions with people about the issue of food insecurity in our community, everyone I talked to felt for the cause—they had a desire to help make a change but did not know where to start. So, we started Fueled By Kids! We are an organization that wants to address the food insecurity problems in our community. Having started with only the Parker Varney Elementary School, by the end of the school year we were able to add the Wilson Elementary School and Jewett Street Elementary Schools to our mission.

At the end of the school year, I had a meeting with each of these schools and discovered that the need for Fueled By Kids is even more widespread than we initially realized. We need YOU to help feed the hundreds of children in Manchester that go hungry each weekend.

GET INVOLVED

DONATE NOW

Schools We Sponsor

We currently serve about 950 students across the 20 schools listed below. If you would like your school to be sponsored, please contact us by phone, email, or the submission form on the contact page.

Bakersville Elementary School

Manchester Central High School

Green Acres Elementary School

Hillside Middle School

Mcdonough Elementary School

Manchester Memorial High School

Parker-Varney Elementary School

Smyth Road School

Webster School

Weston Elementary School

Beech Street Elementary School

Gossler Park Elementary School

Highland Goffe’s Falls Elementary School

Jewett Street Elementary School

Mclaughlin Middle School

Northwest Elementary School

Middle School at Parkside

Southside Middle School

Henry Wilson Elementary School

West High School

Youth Board Members

Kate Mikol Junior at Bedford High
Soccer & Track
Josie Russell Junior at Bedford High - Nordic, Hiking, & Writing
Emily Stabell Senior at Bedford High - Varsity Crew & Bedford Living Magazine Intern

Jill Russell Freshman at Bedford High - Girl Scouts, Crew, & Choir
Finn Klicker Sophomore at Bedford High - Biking and Golf
Lindsey Healey Junior at Bedford High School - Volleyball

Board Members

Brian Mikol PRESIDENT
Anne Mikol SECRETARY
Kevin Lash CO-VICE PRESIDENT

Ken Hauser TREASURER
Scot Limric Co-Vice President
Jonathan Devine Board Member

Letter From Kate

Can you imagine not knowing where your next meal will come from?

We hope you can join us for a really fun day that has a direct benefit for kids in Manchester who rely on our help each week! We began providing 65 bags a week at one school but have grown to now serve over 850 kids at 21 Manchester schools, and we already have plans to add another school in the fall.

Our amazing growth has been the product of school guidance counselors and principals communicating with each other about the great results their kids have experienced and reaching out to us to help more children from new schools. We have amazing volunteers who help us to pack and deliver the bags each week but the most difficult part about Fueled By Kids is finding the money to buy the food each week. There are always more children right here in Manchester, NH that could benefit from our help and we don’t want to say no to any of them (and haven’t yet).

Each bag we deliver on Fridays costs a little over $5, which means it costs about $200 to feed a child for the school year and about $50 for the summer.

For this school year alone, we delivered 32,494 bags of food! People ask what happens after the school year has come to a close, and we are excited to announce that this year we have paired up with the Summer Program runs through the Manchester school district! This allows us to provide weekend bags to children attending the summer programs at the Manchester schools! This wouldn’t be possible without all of our amazing volunteers who take time out of their summer to help us pack and deliver these bags. Please come to our event so we can continue on our mission to end childhood food insecurity, we cannot do it without your support!

I can’t wait to see you there!

Letter from Joe

Can you imagine not knowing where your next meal will come from? We hope you can join us for a really fun day that has a direct benefit for kids in Manchester who rely on our help each week! We began providing 65 bags a week for children at one school but have now grown to serve over 600 children each week at 21 public schools in Manchester.

Our amazing growth has been the product of school guidance counselors and principals communicating with each other about the great results their kids have experienced and reaching out to us to help more children from new schools. Due to Covid-19 we have expanded our program to reach more schools and also provided bags all summer whereas previously we only had a small summer program.

We have amazing volunteers who help us to pack and deliver the bags each week but the most difficult part about Fueled by Kids is finding the money to buy the food each week. There are always more children right here in Manchester, NH that could benefit from our help and we don’t want to say no to any of them (and haven’t yet), while continuing to feed the children we have already committed to help for the year. Each bag we deliver on Fridays costs about $5, which means each child we feed costs about $200 per school year and $50 for the summer.

For this school year alone, we will have delivered 27,480 bags of food! Please come to our event so that we can continue on our mission to end childhood food insecurity, we cannot do it without your support! I can’t wait to see you there!

– Joe