Feed the Children through Schenectady Inner City Ministry (SICM)

The need is great: Surveys show that over half – 1 in 2 – of our community’s children live in situations of poverty. That is, the child poverty rate is over 50%!

Whatever we might consider the causes of this, none of us wants our children to suffer. They did not decide it. They don’t deserve it.

When a child lives in a child poverty situation, the food runs out by the end of the month. Families have to choose between the rent, or the heat, and the food.

We see families and children with “too much month at the end of the money.”

Your support can make a great difference. SICM runs the largest temporary and emergency food program in Schenectady County. We see, on average, 80+ families a day, and more as we get towards the end of the year. This means we provide food for 160 children a day!

Any contribution you make is leveraged because we are able to obtain food in quantity and through the regional food bank. For what you pay for a box of cereal, say $4, we can obtain a whole case of cereal (12 boxes) since we are able to pay just 16 cents per pound for food.

A gift of $18 will provide food for a family for 4 days, and sometimes more.

The other area supported through this initiative is the preparation for summer meals. While summer may seem far off, for SICM the summer meal program has to start almost right after the summer is over.

Again, the need is great. Over 80% of the children in the Schenectady City School District qualify for free or reduced price meals. During the school year, due to the Community Eligibility Option, all receive breakfast and lunch. When school is out, hunger can set in.

SICM is the only summer meal provider in Schenectady County. This past year we provided nearly 86,000 meals over ten weeks and 40 sites, which were mostly in the City of Schenectady but also included an additional site at Collins Park in Scotia.

For too many of our children, our meal is not only the first one of the day…it may be the only one.

Your support can make a great difference. Any support you can provide now will help us help hungry children through the summer meal program.