13th District-wide Food Drive Nets 63,500 pounds

Bloomington Public Schools and its business and civic partners collected over 11,300 pounds of non-perishable food and $14,495 in monetary donations during its week-long District-wide Food Drive earlier this month.

The collection totaled 63,523 pounds when the cash donations to pounds conversion is applied, and will provide nearly 53,000 meals. Each dollar donated accounts for three meals, and each meal is approximately 1.2 pounds. All of the food and cash is donated to Volunteers Enlisted to Assist People (VEAP), a non-profit agency serving low-income families and individuals in Bloomington, Edina, and Richfield.

VEAP serves 10,000 people a month, more than half of whom are children. The district’s Parent Teacher Student Advisory (PTSA) Council coordinated the annual food drive, and had set a goal of 50,000 pounds. This year’s total is 14,350 pounds more than what was collected in 2022, and has surpassed 652,000 pounds since the food drive’s inception in 2009.

Bloomington’s public schools, early childhood centers, central departments and business and civic partners participated in the drive, including Bloomington Acura Subaru, Bloomington Ice Garden, Cedar Valley Church, City of Bloomington Fire Department, Covington Apartment Homes, Early Learning Advisory Council, Martin Luther Campus, Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, MSA Baseball Cages, My Credit Union, Northstar Tavern, Oak Grove Presbyterian Church, Oxboro Evangelical Free Church, Planet Fitness, Quality Bicycle Products, The Toro Company, and United Methodist Church.