During the 15 months of Covid -19 challenges, BoulderShares® was honored to help brighten Christmas 2020 and Easter 2021 by facilitating the delivery of hot delicious “meals on the go” to elementary school children and their families in the Miami neighborhoods of Little Haiti and Liberty City.

This endeavor was done in partnership with the Office of Community Engagement, Holmes Elementary School, Van E. Blanton Elementary School and the local landmark South Beach Miami restaurant, Santorini by Georgios.

During Covid, many of these students were not able to attend school, thereby losing their access to 2 hot meals a day. These communities are located in “food deserts” with little or no access to supermarkets, further compounding the challenges.

Through this collaborative outreach effort, students and their families were able to come to the school and pick up their meals. Some students were remote learning only, and finally had a chance to re-visit the school and see their fellow classmates. Other students had recently returned to classroom learning and enjoyed the festive ambiance, albeit with challenges of masks and social distancing. Extra meals were delivered by school staff to the homes of students who had not been heard from during the pandemic.

Each child received nutritious hot meals to take home to share with their families after school. The meals consisted of chicken, rice and beans and were large enough to feed 2-3 people further leveraging each donor dollar.

BoulderShares would like to extend a huge thank you to the staff at Santorini by Georgios, staff at both schools, and the principals: Ms. Launa Fuller and Ms. Kimula Oce. We also would like to recognize the Teach for America Members and Miami-Dade County teachers, Matt Boerner and Sara Sosnowski. None of this would have happened without the kindness and support of Ms. Diana Venturini.

We give special thanks to the Horwitz Family Memorial Foundation for funding these events.