A message of hope for hungry kids
Three Bethel University alumni seek to end childhood hunger in Minnesota through leading and supporting one of the country’s largest childhood food insecurity nonprofits, Every Meal. Together, they redefine what it means to be world-changers, encouraging others to radically serve their local neighborhoods from the streets of Minneapolis to the suburbs of Wayzata.
By Hannah Hunhoff | lifestyle reporter & public relations professional
It’s recess time at Gleason Lake Elementary school — located on the border of Plymouth and Wayzata — on a Friday afternoon in 2015. As elementary school kids may race across the playground, maneuver their way across the monkey bars or move their legs back and forth on the swings, Jenna Soule ’95 and a group of Every Meal volunteers pull into the school parking lot with carts full of food bags — containing ingredients to assemble two different meals on the weekend — plus some hearty leftovers.
With a roster of children’s names and recess and class schedules in hand, Soule enters into a classroom, zips open a child’s backpack and discreetly places an Every Meal food bag in-between their art projects, notebooks and binders. These bags contain ready-to-prepare items such as cans of marinara sauce and packages of chicken salad.
Inside the backpack, she sees a sealed school photo packet with the face of a “happy-looking child” along with a few graded papers their parents have left untouched. Her heart is broken as she remembers treasuring the school photo packets of her own children, updating a photo frame with their newest school photos each year and sharing them with her parents.
Soule knew prayer wasn’t a standard Every Meal volunteer requirement, but she chose to whisper a sweet prayer for the children receiving a meal bag. She prayed that each student would “feel protected, know that they are loved, and that they would have hope in their life.”
At the end of the day, a child would slip their backpack over their shoulders and notice that it felt a few pounds heavier than normal. This feeling told them that they had plenty of food for the weekend ahead. On Monday, they would jump out the school bus or carpool line with an appetite to learn, grow and develop.
Founder and CEO, Rob Williams said Every Meal’s story began with 27 kindergartners at Las Estrellas Dual Language School (formerly Sheridan Elementary School) in northeast Minneapolis, a principal’s heartbreaking revelation and two churches, Mill City Church — led by lead Pastor, frequent Chapel speaker and brother of Williams, Stephanie O’Brien — and its partner church, Woodridge Church’s eagerness to lend a helping hand. “
“For me, it’s about being a world changer in whatever world you deem to be your part of the world. There are a lot of important things to do to change the world. So, people should do whatever they can in their own world.” — Rob Williams, Founder and CEO of Every Meal
About 14 years later, Williams, board chair and former Bethel business professor, Soule, their team of 32 employees and thousands of volunteers feed over 12,000 Minnesota students across 450 sites each school week. Every Meal is determined to end childhood food insecurity in Minnesota — where over 300,000 children face this issue every day.
“For me, it’s about being a world changer in whatever world you deem to be your part of the world. There are a lot of important things to do to change the world,” Williams said. “So, people should do whatever they can in their own world.”
Williams’, Soule’s and O’Brien’s involvement with Every Meal started with the organization’s simple step of obedience in 2010.
Williams remembers attending a Las Estrellas Dual Language School (formerly Sheridan Elementary School) site council, where the principal approached a Mill City Church pastor and shared that students were placing school lunch food into their pockets every Friday. She clarified that these same children were experiencing behavioral issues leading up to the weekend, and arriving back to school on Monday feeling “restless and sluggish.”
The principal asked: “Is there anything your church can do to help our school?”
For Williams and other members at Mill City Church and Woodridge Church, the answer was “Yes.”
So, the crew walked over to Sentyrz Supermarket in northeast Minneapolis and purchased snack food items at discounted prices from the owner, Walter Sentyrz. The snacks were placed in the 27 kindergartners’ backpacks in the following weeks.
“It’s not just about the physical sensation of hunger,” Williams said. “ It’s really about the impact that that lack of nutrition has on the kids more holistically and long term.”
O’Brien believes that the early success of Every Meal can be accredited to the teamwork of Mill City Church and their partner church, Woodridge Church. Many of these church members are frequent volunteers, dedicated board members and generous financial investors today.
One of those Woodridge church members and early corporate partner volunteers was Soule. Williams invited her to serve on the Every Meal board in 2018. She was officially asked to embrace a four-year leadership commitment as the board chair of Every Meal. Soule said this role is a continual “cup-filler,” allowing her to fuse all her past work experiences.
When Soule first started volunteering for Every Meal in 2015, the Every Meal coordinator directed her to school in her own backyard: a school right up the road from her former workplace in Wayzata. This would later contribute to a new revelation: “Hunger doesn’t care where you live.”
“[William’s journey leading Every Meal] really showed that if you have a passion for something and if you persevere, you will find a way toward a solution,” Soule said.
Soule emphasized that each meal at Every Meal is nutritious, delicious and relevant, being offered in five unique bags — a blue bag catered to East African dietary preferences, a green bag with a wide variety of familiar foods like pasta and veggies, an orange bag catered to Latino dietary preferences, a purple bag catered to Southeast Asian dietary preferences and a yellow bag with foods that require minimal preparation.
“When we talk about relevancy, what we’re meaning is it has to be culturally relevant to the kid. We have found over the years that just because we give out free food, that doesn’t mean that everyone is going to use it.” — Jenna Soule, board chair of Every Meal
At each of Every Meal’s 450 sites, students can get access to an enrollment form, where they select which type of meal they would like to receive. All meals are approved by a dietitian and taste-tested to ensure that the students receive high-quality meals. The third cornerstone of Every Meal’s food bag, relevance, is the hallmark of this initiative.
“When we talk about relevancy, what we’re meaning is that it has to be culturally relevant to the kid. We have found over the years that just because we give out free food, that doesn’t mean that everyone is going to use it,” Soule said. “Just because something’s free, if it’s not something that you or your family is used to eating, or meeting the dietary or cultural guidelines of your family, it’s not something that will be useful.”
Every Meal is entirely community–funded, meaning that it doesn’t rely on government, state or federal support. It spends anywhere from $2.5 million to $3 million a year on food. Currently, Every Meal has over 190 schools on its waiting list. This reveals that around 3,000 students’ backpacks are ready to receive food bags each Friday afternoon of the school year.
Bethel University Associate Professor of Education Elisabeth Lefebvre remembers her time as an elementary school teacher in a rural town in Louisiana, where as of 2022–2023, nearly 80% of students qualified for free or reduced lunch. She said many students lived in outlying areas that could be classified as food deserts with few options in terms of grocery stores or restaurants.
“I think on a broader level we have to ask ourselves, do we feel comfortable living in a society where kids go to bed hungry not because of choices that they’ve made and not because of inadequacies on their parents’ part, but because they lack access to affordable food.” — Elisabeth Lefebvre, Bethel University Associate Professor of Education
Lefebvre has seen food insecurity in tandem with other issues facing kids and parents, such as housing insecurity, parents juggling multiple jobs and navigating mental and physical disabilities
The state has now mended the gap within the national school lunch program, where enrolled families were required to have an income “between 130 and 185 percent of the federal poverty line” — earning around $60,000 or less per year — “to receive a reduced-priced meal.” Still, thousands of students hear their bellies rumble every Friday afternoon and wonder if they will have enough to eat over the next two days. This means that Every Meal has a salient opportunity to support the food insecurity gap over the weekends.
Williams expressed that “90% of school respondents say that [Every Meal] helped improve kids’ [lives] socially, behaviorally and academically, as well built their self-esteem and aided schools in fostering relationships with families.” He believes that many of the student meal recipients may not be aware that Every Meal is responsible for supporting their nutritional needs. But, he emphasized that there is no reason for them to know.
“When Every Meal started, I think my brother was looking for a deeper purpose,” O’Brien said. “Even since he was a little kid and we asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would say that he just wanted to help people.”
William’s reason for his work at Every Meal will always be linked to the words in red in Matthew 25.
This is the passage where Jesus speaks of separating the sheep from the goats. Where Jesus challenges His people to feed the hungry. Where Jesus urges His people to clothe the naked. Where Jesus persuades His people visit people in prison.
“If you look at the Bible story holistically, cover-to-cover, it’s really about engaging with your community and especially for those who are in a worse off situation than you are.” —Rob Williams, founder and CEO of Every Meal
At the end of the day, Williams believes that God works powerfully through His people and it’s their choice or not to respond.
“If you look at the Bible story holistically, cover-to-cover, it’s really about engaging with your community and especially for those who are in a worse off situation than you are,” Williams said.
On Friday, May 10th, a rock music playlist blasts through the loudspeakers at the Every Meal warehouse in Roseville, as volunteers from Trinity Lutheran church, AssuredPartners and other loyal community partners stand by a green, orange, purple or yellow meal station. They are following Williams’ call to engage with their local community.
On a long sliver-wheeled table at a yellow flag — an indicator that volunteers are packing a meal that requires minimal preparation — assembly line, a group of volunteers place a can of peaches, a can of ravioli pasta, a can of green beans, packets of protein granola and an assortment of dried fruit into an Every Meal food bag. Each bag is carefully tied, placed and wrapped in a box and stacked on a blue platform. About 30 to 45 minutes into the packing session, volunteers have already packed 462 bags, being equivalent to 1,771 meals.
Halfway into the packing session, a group of fifth-and sixth-graders from the St. Michael-Albertville Middle School district joins the packing session. It’s the district exploratory day, so each student chose Every Meal out of several volunteering opportunities. They may not know that Every Meal food bags are given to their own classmates. These middle schoolers’ and other church, corporate and local volunteers’ tangible investment in their local community amounted to a total of 3,366 bags. Because of their packing session, 12,892 meals will be placed inside children’s backpacks in the weeks to come.
In the fall of 2023, Soule stood by the Every Meal interactive holiday display at level one, north at the Mall of America. On their way to Nickelodeon Universe or mission to check some holiday gifts off their lists at one the mall’s 520 stores, thousands of shoppers walked past the display.
One woman took a moment to stop at the Every Meal display and introduced herself to Soule and another Every Meal employee as a teacher.
“Thank you so much for what you guys do. You bring food to my school and you serve many of the kids in my classroom….these are my kids. I know that they’ll have food because you guys brought it here and I don’t have to worry about them.” — Teacher, whose students receive Every Meal food bags
The teacher’s eyes welled up in tears, as she shared a message: “Thank you so much for what you guys do. You bring food to my school and you serve many of the kids in my classroom….these are my kids. I know that they’ll have food because you guys brought it here and I don’t have to worry about them.”
Soule was touched by how the teacher referred to her own students as “her kids” and clarified that they truly needed Every Meal’s help.
“On most days, serving on the board involves a lot of meetings, emails, zoom calls, budgets, and strategic planning. But it’s moments like the encounter I had with the teacher that remind me of why Every Meal exists,” Soule said. “It’s so much more than budgets, or committee meetings, or even a bag of food. It’s a tangible way to provide hope to kids.”
Today, Mill City Church still commits a percentage of its budget to cover the cost of Every Meal food bags at Las Estrellas Dual Language School. O’Brien has even mentored one of the student recipients.
Beyond the numbers of meals packed and amount of kids supported, O’Brien believes that Every Meal has helped churches and other organizations forge genuine relationships with schools.
Drawing from Acts 1:2, O’Brien said when churches think about witnessing in Jerusalem, Judea and the ends of the earth, they often feel led to go to the ends of the earth before they serve the part of the world that is closest to them. For O’Brien and Mill City Church, their mission field is positioned right outside their church doors and is centered on loving their Northeast Minneapolis neighbors. “We could never measure the relational depth and fruitfulness that has come from all the schools starting to trust the churches,” O’Brien said.
About 50 professionals, philanthropists and long-time supporters gathered in the Every Meal warehouse in Roseville in early May for a breakfast and warehouse tour sponsored by the board of directors.
Wearing her green Every Meal top underneath a black blazer, Soule stood on stage in front of a large banner that read “good food is nutritious, delicious and relevant” and shared the Every Meal origin story. She spoke of the 12,000 kids that receive food and newfound hope each week. Above all, Soule mentioned the profound impact of Every Meal in the fight against childhood hunger — the same impact she saw come to life around 9 years ago at her first volunteer experience at Gleason Lake Elementary School.
If you are interested in learning more about Every Meal and supporting its mission through volunteering or financial donations, check out its website here.
Hannah Hunhoff, an organizational communication major with minors in journalism and social media, graduates in May from Bethel University. She has spent the last four years spearheading marketing campaigns, working on social media initiatives and writing purpose-driven stories. From working as a social media student manager in the Bethel Marketing and Communication office and a lifestyle reporter at the Bethel Clarion to serving as a Communications Fellow for the BethelBiz mentorship program and teaching assistant for the communication and business department, Hannah has tapped into her passions. This June, she will be starting her public relations career at advertising agency, Carmichael Lynch Relate.
