BOCA RATON, Fla. — Brothers Luke and Jett Justin noticed when they volunteered at the Boca Helping Hands (BHH) food pantry that one item wasn't often donated.
"There was always a shortage of cereal to pack into the pantry bags. And we decided we wanted to do something about it. So we started the cereal drive at our elementary school, Calusa, and since then we've expanded it to 16 schools, said Luke Justin who is now a freshman at American Heritage Palm Beach.
"We wanted to make sure kids could start their day off with breakfast," Jett Justin added.
They formed Cereal4All and to date have raised 16,000 boxes of cereal which equates to 158,000 bowls.
"They came here when they were 8 years old and learned the lesson that sometimes it takes many of us our entire lives to learn that they could make a difference in people's lives. They organize the cereal drive, so they are not only raising cereal for us as a tangible way of contributing, but they're inspiring us and others to make a difference in people's lives," said BHH executive director Gregory Hazel.
This weekend their mission continues at the FAU Owls football game.
"We play Southeastern Louisiana 6 p.m. Saturday night in our stadium, we're expecting a big crowd and all of those that bring a box of cereal, as part of cereal for all for BHH will get free admission to the game," said Brian White, vice president and director of athletics at FAU.
Putting a small band-aid on a seemingly larger problem.
"It is estimated that around 200,000 members of our community here in Palm Beach County have food insecurity issues. Meaning they may not be hungry today, but they're not sure where their next meal is coming from. The painful part to me is that almost 60,000 of that number are kids. Okay, and that's, in my opinion, just a dirty little secret that we have in our county," Hazel said.