Our Mission
Impacting food insecurity in Hays through meals, resources and education.
It’s really that simple.
What is Feeding Hays?
Its dinner on us, and so much more. Follow along with us as we expand from free meals to food pantries, to community gardens and more.
For right now, Come every Thursday from 6:30 Until the food is all gone (food is often gone by 6:40, so come early) to get a great meal for free.
Just come through the driveway and pick up as many as you need (only 5 per vehicle without a pre-order). And If you need 5 meals or more, you can text us at least 2 hours in advance, at 785-259-1964 so we are sure we have enough!
Feel like making a donation? We also take freewill donations in the line to fund public school lunches for families.
And soon we will be adding more services to better address food insecurity in Hays!
Follow our Social Media for more information!
Our Story
Feeding Hays was dreamt up during the Half-Time show of the 2022 Superbowl. A group of friends sat in a basement talking about the needs of our community and how they might be able to make an impact. Housing, childcare, food, and many other things were discussed. But as the group talked, it was food insecurity that they kept coming back to as something that was both a significant problem, and one they might be able to make an impact on.
The initiative was a true collaboration of ideas. One person suggested a food kitchen, another recommended we start with a single night of meals, another recommended making the meals available as a drive-through option, and we all eventually agreed that it might be best to only do this as a drive through. The final piece added was to use the donations of the night to cover student lunch debt. And just like that, the idea was born.
It took time to get it started, but in Early September of 2022, Feeding Hays had its first meal served. That first night we only served 15 meals, but we knew we had created something worth doing.
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After serving 15 meals in our first week, we saw weekly numbers rise and fall often. After 4 months we had gotten to an average of 20 meals a night. And by the end of 7 months, we were at an average of 25-30 meals a night. We knew at that point we needed to do some work to better market what we were doing and get some feedback on our food and process.
Based on the feedback we got, we increased our Facebook postings and outreach, updated our meals, improved our recipes, and opened up our serving times to allow people
earlier access to the food. We also did some work to reach out to local shelters and homes and we began taking pre-orders from them for meals for their clients. This also led us to offer a pre-order option to any group that wanted more than our typical 5 meal limit per vehicle.
With all of these changes It didn’t take long for our average meals served to go from the mid-twenties to the mid-forties.
Today, we are averaging nearly 80 meals a week, with some weeks going well over 100 meals served.
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Along with all the meals being served, Feeding Hays is also actively involved in helping to reduce and eliminate school lunch debt for the kids in USD 489.
This idea has always run hand in hand with our meal services. One of those friends from the Superbowl party worked directly with at risk kids in Hays and the surrounding areas. They talked about how difficult it is on these kids that are already struggling, to reach a point in school lunch debt where the rest of the students are receiving a standard meal, but they are given a reduced meal until their food balance is back below a certain level of debt.
This led us to discuss co-creative community projects, and the possibility that the people coming to get the weekly meals might want to give something back, and with that donation then helping to pay down these school lunch debts would be just the thing to give back to.
So that’s what we do. People come through the line and get meals, and they know they can give a little back to help these kids. Last year we were able to pay over $600 in school lunch debt. This year we have already raised over $500 to be donated. This year our community will help to ensure no child in our schools is ever singled out by debt.
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We have so many ideas for ways to grow in the future. We are working with the entire Hays community on everything from Improving and expanding food banks, to meal delivery, to full and open community gardens.
So stay with us, and keep checking back as we work to make to provide food, education and resources for eliminating food insecurity here in Hays Kansas.