County Supervisors have shown a little kindness to a local non-profit battling hunger in local schools.
Two Supervisors recently approved grants totaling $2,500 out of their Community Projects Fund budgets to the Kindness Coalition, a non-profit dedicated to providing nutritious food for local school children and their families and based in Morro Bay. The money was to support the Coalition’s “Bags of Love” Food Program.
Dist. 2 Supervisor Bruce Gibson put up $2,000 of his Community funds, and Dist. 3 Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg gave another $500 to the Coalition.
“The primary mission of the Estero Bay Kindness Coalition,” reads a staff report, “is to partner with for-profits, nonprofits, churches, and schools so that they can benefit the greater good for those who find themselves living on the margins in the greater Estero Bay Area. The purpose of the organization is to provide basic needs to under-resourced school aged kids and their families such as healthy, protein rich foods and new and/or gently used kids clothing. The EBKC provides 3 bags of groceries per family, (to an average of 135 families) per week.”
Though begun in 2018 by just two people — Bobby and Denise de Lancelotti of Cayucos — as a way to help out needy kids at Del Mar Elementary School, the Coalition has grown tremendously in both volunteer participation and the number of schools and families it serves.
The Coalition has a distribution warehouse adjacent to the Avocado Shack produce stand on North Main Street, Morro Bay.
They work with numerous other charitable organizations — the Food Bank of San Luis Obispo, Estero Bay Alliance for Care, Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce, Morro Bay Lions, Morro Bay Rotary, Los Osos Rotary, Cayucos Rotary, Cambria Rotary, Del Mar Elementary, Cayucos Elementary, Cambria Grammar School, Monarch Grove Elementary, Baywood Park Elementary, Family Partnership Morro Bay, Los Osos Middle School, Santa Lucia Middle School, Sunshine Health Food, and the Grocery Outlet Los Osos.
For more information on the Kindness Coalition, see: esterobaykindnesscoalition.org.
