Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — A recall of a popular granola bar has put a nonprofit that serves the Granite School District in a bind.
Thousands of weekend meal kits were packaged and ready to go out to nearly 84 schools in the district to help serve kids with food insecurities. Now, the kits must be unpackaged because they all have Quaker granola bars.
Those bars were part of a recall last week because of the threat of salmonella.
"It's a mind-boggling feat," said Remi Prince, Granite Education Foundation programs and volunteer manager.
Back in September, the group got a major donation of 40,000 meal kits thanks to a gift from Vivint.
"Unfortunately, they had Quaker granola bars inside them," Prince said.
The Granite Education Foundation and its volunteers help serve the more than 60,000 kids at 84 schools in the Granite School District.
"About half of those students qualify for free and reduced lunch. And that is kind of a good indicator of how many of our students might be struggling with food insecurity or needing basic necessities," Prince said.
Prince is now looking for some volunteer help because they only have Thursday and Friday to get about a thousand of those kits ready and to the schools before students leave for winter break. But in total, there are many more kits to sift through.
"We have about 30,(thousand)- to 40,000 kits within our warehouse that do need to be verified and looked through, " he said.
And that is not their only need heading into the holidays.
"We are low on new clothing, so we take in all sizes of new clothing. We have our weekend kits that are our food kits, but we also accept backpacks and school supplies," Prince said.
Tuesday morning, about 20 people showed up to help pull granola bars after a call on social media. April Foyston was one of them.
"It gives me an opportunity to also support kids in a way when they need some food to go home with over a break," Foyston said. "I felt bad for all the people who put the Quaker bars in the bag to begin with."
Prince hopes to get as many bars removed from bags as possible this week since the group also provides 4,000 to 5,000 meals monthly to Granite school kids.
"It means the world to me (to have volunteers show up). We're a small staff of seven here at the Granite Education Foundation, and without volunteers, we couldn't do what we do for our almost 60,000 students," Prince said.
On Tuesday evening, the GraniteKids Instagram page said they were able to remove the bars from enough kits needed for this week's deliveries to Granite schools.
However, they still need help on Thursday and Friday to tackle removing bars from the thousands of remaining kits. To help, you can visit the Granite Education Foundation website, at Granitekids.org.
View this post on Instagram: A post shared by Give Local. Give Granite. (@granitekids)
