Three community organizations joined Gaiser Middle School, Peter S. Ogden Elementary School and the VPS mobile FCRC on Dec. 11 to feed hungry families through a mobile pantry.

With the assistance of Clark County Food Bank’s Fresh Alliance program, Share Vancouver collected approximately 2,000 pounds of food.

First United Methodist Church lent its van and covered the cost of gas of Share traveling to Gaiser, Ogden and a local Head Start program to distribute food.

Roughly 65 percent of Gaiser students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. That number is even higher at Ogden, where about 79 percent of students qualify.

Gaiser offers a monthly limited food pantry for its students and families. Ogden has an onsite Family-Community Resource Center, which connects families with food and other resources.

Through the mobile pantry at Gaiser, seven families encompassing some 30 people received food, with options for produce, dairy and meat items and holiday meal kits.

Share, which also delivers food weekly to families through its Backpack Program and already hosts mobile pantries at other VPS schools with Family-Community Resource Centers, hopes to make the mobile pantry a regular event at Gaiser for the rest of the school year.

Said Gaiser Counselor Kellie Budnick, who helped coordinate the event, “It really helps to have these partners and the mobile FCRC to offer resources.”