Penn Wood High School fighting food insecurity with free student resource pantry, Rap Athl-EATs

LANSDOWNE, pa - Penn Wood High School is partnering with Murphy’s Giving Market to provide a free student resource pantry filled with food, drinks and hygiene products.

The program is called Rap Athl-EATs, named in honor of Hall of Fame basketball player and long-time athletic director Rap Curry who sadly passed away this summer. 

Joseph Cuff-Wright is a school social worker and the Assistant Football Coach at Penn Wood High and said it was their idea to find a way to remove this barrier.

"It came to be because a lot of our athletes were missing practice or going home early from practice because they were taking care of younger siblings or didn’t have enough food at home," said Cuff-Wright. "I can speak for the football team. We’ve been having the most consistent roster we’ve had in a long time where students come either to eat, engage with us, talk and it gives a chance to have social moment with them as well. Sit down and eat with our players."

Desireé LaMarr-Murphy, founder, director and CEO of Murphy’s Giving Market, said at first Curry and Cuff-Wright asked if the students could volunteer at her nonprofit in exchange for food. 

"I don’t believe in people working for food, especially kids having to work for food, so I told him we would work together to make sure that the kids have food as long as they have someone come pick up and someone to actually run the pantry," said LaMarr-Murphy. "A lot of our kids already have so many obstacles they’re facing and we have these kids who have a dream of playing sports going to college and having a better life, but they don’t have all the necessities they need to do that."

LaMarr-Murphy said they drafted a proposal for the Delaware County Foundation and soon after connected with other donors such as the Philadelphia Flyers and Wegmans.

A new fridge was donated and the pantry is stocked once or twice a week.

"One of the biggest things is Takis. Kids today love, Takis. Cookies, they love chips, hot chips, Cheetos Gatorade, water, flavored waters, seltzer waters are big thing now," said Cuff-Wright.

Mohammed Bangura, 17, is a senior interested in pursuing social work in the future and signed up to be the student manager of the pantry. He said it provides a safe space for all students.

"I feel like it helps a lot of kids mentally because you know a lot of kids have that mental stuff going on with them sometimes, you know, they can just reach out to you like, I see you getting snacks. I just start a conversation right there," said Bangura. "Students get hungry during the day so you know we kind of like give them that opportunity, invest in them, show them we have food for them if they ever get hungry."

Every single student can take what they need, even for their siblings back home. Student athlete Khalil Rahmoun said, "I didn’t notice a can of tuna which I do really like to eat, especially after practice. Getting all that protein in. I think it’s a great thing for many of the students to have, especially since many of them have a lack of it back home."

Cuff-Wright said they plan on rolling out an Amazon Wish List, so students can choose what they’d like to see in the resource pantry. 

If you’d like to support this effort, you can email JCuffWright@wpsd.k12.pa.edu or reach out via Instagram to Millennial_soulicalworker.

You can also support this cause through Murphy’s Giving Market. LaMarr-Murphy said Giving Tuesday could be a great opportunity to get involved.

The grand opening of the Rap Athl-EATs program at Penn Wood High is November 28. 

Moving forward, Cuff-Wright said their plan is to add resource pantries to every school in the William Penn School District.