The Learning Experience Doylestown, Pa Collects Over Two Tons Of Food For Local Food Pantries

The hardest part about teaching preschoolers about philanthropy is making them understand just what that means.

But visuals help - like a busful of food that the kids helped pack.

"It's something tangible," explained Jennifer Eckfield. "When you say the word "philanthropy," can you imagine a 4-year-old understanding it? But when they see the boxes and carry cans with mom and dad, they start to piece it together."

And, helping them piece it together is part of her job. As the owner of The Learning Experience child day care center in Doylestown, Eckfield built charity into the curriculum.

"We teach the kids what it means to donate, and be thoughtful to our community and others," she explained.

So far this year, the center has teamed up with groups like Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Bucks County, and lesser-known organizations like the Warrington-based Special Equestrians, which offers therapeutic riding programs for mentally and physically challenged children.

But the biggest effort so far - and one just in time for summer - was Eckfield's own Fill-A-Bus program. It was essentially a canned food drive, specifically an Adopt-A-Pantry effort through the Bucks County Opportunity Council - but one with a big scope.

"When you fill out the paperwork, they ask you about your goal, and I didn't have an answer," explained Eckfield. "Then one day I looked at our school bus and said, "That's what we're going to do."
The Learning Experience kids and their families loaded more than two tons of food onto the bus.

The Learning Experience kids and their families loaded more than two tons of food onto the bus.

And they did. By the time the drive ended, The Learning Experience kids and their families loaded more than two tons of food onto the bus.

A bulk of that came from the Learning Experience families and even Eckfield's own parents, who donated a few hundred pounds themselves. But the biggest contributions came from strangers.

Eckfield teamed up with Dollar Tree in Warrington, where she hung fliers asking customers to spend a dollar on a non-perishable item. The response was overwhelming.

"At first I thought I'd go once a week [to pick up donations]. Next thing you know, I'm going four times a week."
And, those donations couldn't have come at a better time: summer especially is a time when many families struggle to keep their children fed.

Before opening her own Learning Experience, she used to work with at-risk and adjudicated youths through public education systems in Bucks County. One thing she realized is that, for many children in financially challenged families, their meals can stop coming after the school year.

"The kids who are on assistance get breakfast and lunch at school, and when they go home they're hopefully provided a hot dinner," she explained. "But in the summertime, that goes away."

That's where the food pantries come in, Eckfield continued: often to serve people who are needy but not always recognized as such.

"A lot of people think about people in need as being vagrant, but that's just not the case," she said. "Many are disabled, elderly or working poor - people that have jobs and are working hard but just can't make it."

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