GENERAL SANTOS CITY – In this dark day of quarantines, lockdowns and relief packs, the city of General Santos shines a light of hope and community unity in the face of adversity.
Every day, volunteers and teachers of more than 70 city-run daycare centers are busy cooking up nutritious meals for the city’s children and those that do not have anything to eat.
The local government unit calls these converted daycare centers as “Community Kitchen,” each day they are supplied with ingredients to make the day’s meal which was planned by the Department of Health (DOH) trained dieticians to feed kids for free.
The Community Kitchen concept is a brainchild of the city’s first lady, Jane Gollon-Rivera. According to her, she noticed that in disaster relief efforts, the kid’s nutrition is forgotten.
“Relief packs are usually designed to fight hunger and starvation, but most of the time we forget the nutritional aspect,” Gollon-Rivera.
She added, that each of the city’s 70 Community Kitchen can feed more than 500 kids, twice a day.
Next week, the local government unit of General Santos plans to open more than 30 additional Community Kitchens which can provide more than 70,000 meals, twice a day.