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Representatives from Stop & Shop and ACES Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School attend a ribbon cutting for a school food pantry.

A sign for the food pantry at ACES Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School.

Caroline Ecke has found a new purpose for what used to be a vacant office tucked inside ACES Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School.

With the help of a $10,000 grant from Stop & Shop, the space has been transformed into a food pantry. Its purpose is to help ensure students and their families have enough to eat at home.

The North Haven-based school, which serves grades K-8, has operated other initiatives to battle food insecurity.

“The students come from mostly Hamden, Meriden, New Haven and Waterbury, so we definitely have a lot of students that come from low-income families,” said Ecke, a special eduction teacher.

Each year, the staff puts together Thanksgiving baskets containing entire meals for families, she said.

Last year, ACES used COVID-related aid funds give kids food items from the cafeteria to take home each weekend, Ecke said. Such initiatives helped her realize there was a need for similar programming, she said.

That’s when she learned about the Stop & Shop School Food Pantry Program.

The project dates back to 2019, when a New York-based school reached out to the company and said teachers were paying to make sure kids had basic essentials to eat over the weekend, said Maura O’Brien, a communications manager for Stop & Shop.

“We realized that there’s a really significant need among students who rely really heavily on breakfast and lunch at school,” O’Brien said. “Lately with the pandemic and inflation, the need continues to rise.”

Across its five-state footprint, Stop & Shop supports over 100 schools that provide food and other essentials, according to O’Brien. Connecticut has 35 pantries, she said, about 15 of which are in the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities system.

Through the program, the company also seeks to raise awareness about food insecurity and eliminate associated stigma, O’Brien said.

“Kids aren’t able to learn if they’re hungry. They aren’t able to learn if they don’t have basic needs like body wash, deodorant,” she said.

Funding varies based on each school’s needs, said O’Brien, adding that most of the assistance is provided via Stop & Shop gift cards.

The company aims to spend $1.5 million on the pantry program in 2022, O’Brien said, and schools can reapply for funding annually.

After opening its pantry early this year, the team at Wintergreen realized that some students needed clothes in addition to food. They collected gently used clothing, mostly from staff, according to Ecke, who said the pantry also offers hygiene products.

For kids who want to keep their use of the pantry private, Ecke provides opportunities for them to visit at the end of the school day and put items in their backpacks.

But one feature of the pantry helps eliminate any stigma. Because it has some of the Stop & Shop branding, Ecke said, many of the kids view the pantry as a grocery store Ecke opened.

“A lot of the kids call it…‘Ms. Ecke’s Stop & Shop,’” she said. “They feel like they are just going shopping.”

So far, ‘Ms. Ecke’s Stop & Shop’ has served around 30 families, Ecke said. Though it opened at the start of the year, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held earlier this month.

Meghan Friedmann covers North Branford, Guilford and Madison. Before joining the Register team, she worked on an independent journalism project about migration in Berlin, Germany. When she's not reporting, you can find her hiking Shoreline trails and eating her way through New Haven. She welcomes feedback and story ideas from readers.