By Darrell Kirby | [email protected]

Spring break is eagerly anticipated by most students in the Granite School District. 

However, for some elementary school kids in the district and their families, the pause in classes for a few days in late March and early April came with some anxiety. 

Students who rely on school-provided free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches for a good portion of their daily nutrition faced the prospect of scrambling for decent meals during time away from school. 

That’s where local employees of Salt Lake City-based Ken Garff Automotive Group stepped up. The auto dealer’s “We’re Hear for You” community involvement program (a twist on the company’s “We Hear You” slogan) was looking for a way to serve a segment of the population as a way to say “thanks” for the broader community support that allowed the company to keep its dealerships open for business during the onset and difficult months of the COVID-19 pandemic that followed.

“We became familiar that Granite School District has a lot of kids who are food insecure,” said Kate Terry, marketing manager for community and events for the Ken Garff Auto Group. 

Garff donated $10,000 to the Granite Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization that builds community and business partnerships to improve educational outcomes and the quality of life for students in the school district. 

GEF used the money to buy food for the meal kits for needy students and their families to get them through spring break. 

About two dozen Garff employees volunteered to put together meal boxes at the GEF distribution center. “We were able to assemble 622 meal boxes, which had three meals for four people,” Terry said. Contents included canned goods, cereal, cookies, crackers and other items to cover breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “It was pretty daunting—pallets on pallets on pallets. By the end of it, everything was beautifully boxed.” 

The meal kits were delivered to three elementary schools in the district: Plymouth, Stansbury and West Valley, which have poverty rates ranging from 50% to 83% of their students. 

“We had a COVID-safe drive-thru process where our employees were able to hand these meal boxes to families to have a little bit of food security while they are not in school,” Terry added. 

“It’s not meant to be a long-term solution. We’re not set up to do that. It is more of an intervention,” said Robert Hanson, head of development for GEF. 

GEF operates pantries in 34 schools to provide food for students in need throughout the school year. It is estimated that more than 41,000 of the district’s 67,000 students experience some level of food insecurity.  

“I was not expecting to see the kind of need that exists here in the valley,” Hanson said. “It was stunning to me.” Hunger among students leads to a lack of concentration, increased agitation, altercations and absenteeism which affect academic performance. 

Terry said the reaction of the people receiving the food made the project well worth the time and effort. 

“Families were so grateful,” Terry said. “I think there was a sense of relief and gratitude that people care.”