How the Houston Food Bank uses its skills in providing meals to help teachers with school supplies
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The Houston Food Bank provided 140 million meals to people in 18 counties in fiscal year 2024, according to its website, but many may not realize, the food bank helps with more than food.
As part of its school programs, the food bank gets much-needed supplies to students and teachers in low-income schools.
Year after year, teachers reach into their own pockets to stock their classrooms. In fact, on average, teachers spent $895 out of pocket on school supplies during the 2024-2025 school year, an Adopt A Classroom survey found.
But the Houston Food Bank plays a major role in filling, and ideally, erasing any gaps.
And while the focus is often on the beginning of the school year, teachers tell us having supplies later into the semester is just as important.
"Throughout the year, we run out of glue sticks, we run out of pencils, so the food bank here helps us provide that, so we don't have to ask the parents throughout the year for that," one teacher noted.
"Houston Food Bank started the relationship with these schools when we started the backpack program almost 20 years ago. And in that program, we came to understand the struggles that the teachers have as well and realize that, 'Oh, there's more that we can do than do the backpacks,'" Brian Greene, president and CEO of the Houston Food Bank, told ABC13.
In addition to Backpack Buddy, the food bank also runs programs like School Market and Kids Cafe.
The food bank is also, Greene describes, a leverage organization.
"Our role is to take a dollar and turn it into multiple dollars worth of resources for the community. And when we work with the schools, we think we even get better leverage than that because the schools are themselves multipliers where they take resources and then the impact that they have on a child's life for the next 70 or so years can be immense. So when we're behind that, we see great leverage, we see great opportunity, we want to do more of it," he told ABC13.
When it comes to school supplies, the food bank notes that in fiscal year 2024, teachers spent between $800 - $1,000 of their own money on those items.
"For many of these teachers, they're in families that can be struggling as well," Greene said. "So it makes a huge difference in their ability to provide these resources for the kids, especially when it's the resources for the kids who don't have pencils and don't have paper or something like that on their own, where if the teacher can give them to them, that makes a huge difference."
Some of the most-needed school supplies are crayons, highlighters, markers, pencils, folders, pens, and spiral notebooks. You can see a full list of supplies here.
Greene explains that one reason the food bank is able to assist as it does is because of logistics.
"We run 60 trucks a day delivering food to a network of some 1,600 partners, and we realized a long time ago that we can handle non-food as well as food," Greene said. "And that's what got us really interested in doing a program we call Teacher's Aid, where we provide school supplies for teachers in low-income schools."
It's something that has actually grown to be quite big. Last year, they distributed supplies to about 11,000 teachers in 260 different schools, Greene said, adding the food bank wants it to keep going.
Just like not having regular meals can stunt a child's brain development that would have lasting effects into their adult years, not having the right school supplies adds to that.
However, students who have what they need in the classroom are more confident and perform better. And sometimes just going back to the basics is an easy way to help out.
"Things like erasers and pens - these are the kinds of things that go the fastest. Everybody wants this. We just can't get enough of it," Greene said, adding that the math on school supplies is actually even better than it is for meals.
"School supplies are so expensive, and for us, the logistics costs of handling these dry goods is really cheap. So we actually are able to get many dollars worth of output for every dollar we spent on school supplies," Greene said.
No matter the cost, the goal in the end is to help teachers, students, and their families.
"One pencil may be simple to you, but it can mean everything, and it can make a world of difference to a child that doesn't have school supplies," said D'Jomme Adia, director of education services at the Houston Food Bank.
