Before heading into the holidays, Brunel Houston took a volunteer opportunity to pack lunches for pre-school aged children at local non-profit, Kids’ Meals. Each weekday, Kids’ Meals delivers over 7,000 healthy meals to Houston children under the age of 6 who are in need. When school is out, every child up to age 18 in these homes also receives a healthy meal from Kids’ Meals – up to 7,500 kids per day!
Houston based Sr. Operations Coordinator, Janet Martinez, organized the event on Brunel’s behalf after learning about Kids’ Meals through a friend and Kids’ Meals board member. Janet says of her friend, “she shared with me her experience in volunteering and spending time with the children who receive the meals. I had been wanting to volunteer and thought it would be great do it as a group, so I presented the opportunity to our Foundation team. I’m glad that we decided to move forward with the chance to volunteer.”
In designated teams, some of us packed snacks for local daycares or lunches that older children would receive over the winter break. While other groups were making sandwiches in the Kids’ Meals kitchen, our team was packing milk, trail mix, and a fruit to include in lunches or bagging healthy mid-day snack items for little ones. Amazingly, every packed lunch or snack goes into a pre-decorated brown lunch bag. Using over 1.5 million lunch sacks every year, Kids Meals strives to make every bag special, so volunteers of all ages use their artistic skills or write out their best jokes and poems to share on each bag.
Prior to volunteering, the Houston team decorated dozens of lunch sacks for Kids’ Meals and collected food items for donation. We look forward to partnering with Kids’ Meals in the future whether it be another meal packing event, food drive, or decorating lunch sacks together in the office kitchen. It was a wonderful reminder prior to the holiday season to be grateful for what we have and the importance of giving back together.
Looking back on the event, Janet states it best: “I hope this experience touched the hearts of our Brunellers and instilled in them the desire to spread the word to others so that they can donate and/or volunteer.”
Passion for People
Thank you to Janet, our Brunel Foundation committee members, and all of our employees who donated food and time to give back to the Houston community. As a global company with local roots and a Passion for People, Brunel makes it a priority to give back in each of the communities where we do business. Here in our Houston office we are also very involved with the Avondale House, a community and school dedicated to serving children and adults with Autism.