Feeding Juneau’s Future raised more than $900 from about 72 people by the end of a pancake dinner in the Thunder Mountain High School commons.
The group hoped the event would be the last push they needed to reach their goal.
Cindy Gaguine, a coordinator with the group, said the Benito and Frances C. Gaguine Foundation, which her husband runs, has promised to match their donations up to $10,000.
“And with a Go Fund Me that we have going on right now and local donations, we have raised $8,000. So we’re getting close to our goal,” Gaguine said.
Counting the money raised at the dinner, that’s almost $9,000 total.
Feeding Juneau’s Future is a group that gives food to school kids who might not eat regularly at home. They’re nearing the end of their first “big fundraiser” just short of their $20,000 goal.
The group spends almost $2,000 per week on a couple of their programs for school kids of all ages.
According to Sharon Lowe, another of the charity’s coordinators, one of their most expensive efforts is the backpack program.
“We do the backpack program, which is a nationally recognized program, where we send home food over the weekend to kids who have been identified in the schools by either the school nurse, the counselors or their teachers as having food insecurities,” Lowe said.
Lowe said the program had modest beginnings in Juneau about three and a half years ago and just began operating citywide last school year.
She said the bags of food can help keep kids in school and paying attention.
“And not worried about when lunch is going to be because it’ll be the first time that they might have been fed, or they haven’t gotten enough over the weekend and they’re waiting for the school lunch to appear,” Lowe said.
The group also serves breakfast in Dzantik’i Heeni and Floyd Dryden Middle Schools, which Lowe said don’t get the same free breakfast Juneau School District gives most of the elementary schools.
She estimates they feed 40 to 50 kids breakfast at the two middle schools every day and they give out over 400 bags of food every week.
The group also stocks pantries in the two main high schools.
