Basic Needs

Basic Needs

Why Address Basic Needs?

Many of the youth and families we serve do not have consistent access to healthy food, clean clothing (including undergarments), and daily toiletries and hygiene products. We address the scarcity of these items by conducting a thorough needs assessment and partnering with organizations, churches, and individuals to fill the gaps.

Can you imagine not having enough food in the kitchen to eat dinner tonight? What if you couldn’t go to school tomorrow morning because you didn’t have a clean pair of underwear? What if other kids made fun of you for having stinky breath… because you had run out of toothpaste?

The Foundation of our Five Pillars

Since basic necessities are essential to the mental and emotional health of young people, we consider this to be the foundation of our five pillars. If the children are hungry, they don’t learn as effectively. If the teens don’t have hygiene products, they are self conscious; their self esteem is lower. When we can help meet their basic needs, we enhance their opportunities to develop personally, grow socially, and achieve more academically.
We address basic needs in the following ways:
  • Staff and volunteers deliver boxes or bags of groceries weekly to our youth and their families.
  • As needed, hygiene products are included in the weekly deliveries.
  • Healthy snacks and hot meals are served five days a week to all youth attending the education program.

DONATE

If you would like to contribute financially to provide basic necessities for kids, click here.
ONE-TIME DONATION

In-Kind Donation

If you would like to make an in-kind donation of food or hygiene products, click here.
In-Kind Donation

VOLUNTEER

If you want to volunteer to deliver boxes of food and hygiene products, click here.
VOLUNTEER

Pendergrass family

Testimonial: Pendergrass family

Statement from the Pendergrass family, who have been involved with Water Walkers for five years:

“I love Water Walkers. You all are always thinking about our children and try to give them everything they need. I have never heard of a program that will pick your children up, feed them, mentor them, tutor them and then provide food boxes for the children and our entire family. You all even provide group counseling for our babies and Lord knows they need to talk about some of the things they see in these housing projects. Keep up the needed work and thank you for the weekly food boxes!”

(*Note: To protect the identity of Water Walkers’ participants, their real names are not used in the profiles.)