A Recipe for Giving: Communities In Schools Rolls Out “Ingredient Bags” for Baldwin Families

When the holidays roll around, Baldwin County shows up. From food drives to toy collections, our schools and community partners work side by side to make sure every family feels supported during the season of giving.

This year, Communities In Schools of Milledgeville-Baldwin County is adding a brand-new twist to traditional food donations. And it all starts with a recipe card.

From Canned Goods to Kitchen-Ready Meals

Courtney Bentley, Director for Communities In Schools of Milledgeville-Baldwin County, spends the holiday season focused on one big goal: connecting families with the resources they need, whether that’s food on the table or gifts under the tree.

CIS has a presence in every Baldwin County public school from kindergarten through 12th grade. Site coordinators are on campus every day, building relationships with students and families and serving as a bridge to community support.

(If you'd like to volunteer your support, you can fill out a volunteer form right HERE.)

As those site coordinators shared what families were facing, one recurring challenge kept coming up, “Many times we see that we can’t really piece those items together to make a full, hearty meal,” Courtney explained.

So Courtney went looking for a solution.

Inspired by Meal Kits — Adapted for Baldwin

Communities in Schools' Janice Baker, and Assistant Principal Linda Bell, accept donations of meal bags for Midway Hills Primary

Scrolling through TikTok one day, Courtney came across a creator in another community doing something different with food donations: assembling “meal kits” inspired by services like HelloFresh and Blue Apron.

Courtney immediately thought: We can do this here in Baldwin County.

Using Neighborhood Leaders Grant funding, she downloaded the recipe cards from the creator’s link tree and went shopping, carefully choosing shelf-stable ingredients that families could easily store, cook, and enjoy.

The result: “ingredient bags” that function like a Blue Apron or HelloFresh box, but built entirely from non-perishable items donated and assembled right here in our community.

What’s Inside an Ingredient Bag?

One of Courtney’s favorite examples is a White Chicken Chili kit. The bag includes canned chicken, beans, salsa, and other pantry staples that come together into a warm, filling meal. The recipe card also lists a few optional extras like certain seasonings or cheese, but those are not required for the dish to work.

Families can also hold onto the recipe cards and recreate the meals later for around $10 or less, stretching the impact of a single ingredient bag well beyond one holiday season. What's that old saying? "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime." Well, CIS Baldwin was like, why not do both?

CIS Coordinator Ronda Dixon and Principal Terri Carty accept meal bag donations at Midway Hills Academy

Bringing Partners to the Table

For this first round of ingredient bags, Communities In Schools assembled and distributed approximately 120 bags to families in the Oconee Heights area, served by New Beginnings Church, a long-standing partner in this work.

And this is just the beginning.

Courtney and her team will be partnering with additional local food pantries over the coming weeks and months to get ingredient bags into the hands of more families across Baldwin County. Thanks to an additional $5,000 award from CIS of Georgia, Communities In Schools expects to provide roughly 750 ingredient bags throughout the community turning a creative idea into a large-scale support system for local families.

More Than a Meal

At its heart, this project isn’t just about food. It’s about dignity, time, and togetherness.

• Instead of a random assortment of cans, families receive a clear plan for dinner.

• Instead of wondering how to stretch a pantry, they get a ready-made recipe and all the essentials in one place.

• Instead of facing the holidays with uncertainty, they gain one more night where dinner is taken care of and maybe even a chance to cook together, learn together, and sit down at the table as a family.

  
  

Courtney says she’ll measure success through feedback from the food pantries who directly serve families, listening to what works and what can grow next. But from where we stand, success is already visible: it looks like a stack of recipe cards, rows of neatly packed bags, and a community willing to think differently about how we give.