Produce for Kids, an Orlando, Fla.-based cause marketing organization, is launching its fourth autumn back-to-school Power Your Lunchbox Pledge campaign Aug. 7.
The campaign encourages children to eat a healthier lunch by partnering with organizations that have agreed to collectively donate $1 per pledge to address food insecurity.
Those donations go to Feeding America, and each pledge goes a long way: $1 is enough to provide 11 meals to individuals and families in need.
Last school year, enough families and classrooms made pledges to provide hundreds of thousands of meals.
This year Produce for Kids is introducing some fun content that it hopes will make the campaign even more successful.
Trish James, vice president of Produce for Kids, said the two biggest changes to this year’s Power Your Lunchbox campaign will come in the form of partnerships with The World of Eric Carle and Macaroni Kid.
Produce for Kids will create recipes and teacher resources designed to go with several of Carle’s books, including “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and “Brown Bear, Brown Bear.”
For example, “The Mixed-Up Chameleon” and the company’s new mixed-up trail mix recipe can be enjoyed together, promoting both literacy and healthy eating. In addition, every day during Power Your Lunchbox, Produce for Kids will be giving away an Eric Carle book to somebody who has taken the pledge.
Produce for Kids is also announcing Macaroni Kid as its first official media partner. Macaroni Kid is a digital publishing company, a blogging network that works with mom bloggers, but focuses on local communities.
“This network will allow mom bloggers to learn what’s going on in their communities and distribute specific information to their communities based on that info,” James said.
“We’re looking forward to it because it will really help with moms and dads preparing healthy food.”
However, the Power Your Lunchbox campaign isn’t the only back-to-school effort that Produce for Kids has planned for the fall.
Produce for Kids and Meijer are preparing for their fall iteration of Jump with Jill, a rock and roll nutrition show that visits schools and, in an interactive assembly featuring live music, extols the virtues of healthy eating habits and nutritional education.
“It’s an awesome assembly that gets kids up and moving,” James said of the program, which is in its third year. “It’s really a lot of fun.”
The company’s fall campaign with Publix, like Power Your Lunchbox, will support local Feeding America food banks by donating each time a purchase of products with the Produce for Kids logo on it is made. That initiative begins at the end of September and will last through October.
The Power Your Lunchbox Pledge runs through Sept. 22.