PB&J Fund

The PB&J Fund helps Library staff feed youth when they’re not in school. Established in 2019 as an after-school program, the Fund began with an angel donor organization who provided gift cards to local grocery stores. Youth services staff started making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread as a way to offer a low cost, filling meal for kids and teens who spent their time after school at the Library until closing.

Why? The kids were hungry, and as Library staff soon realized, some were also “hangry.” Many area youth rely on the breakfasts and lunches provided during the school day, but for a variety of reasons, they often go without a meal outside of school. Instead of navigating behavioral challenges or watching many kids go around the block to get the day-old white bread Jimmy John’s sells for a quarter, staff decided to take action by creating the PB&J Fund.

When the initial funding ran out, staff members made donations and crowdsourced additional funding from the community. As the program proved successful and staff started to see the need for more food options not just after school but on the weekends as well, the Chattanooga Public Library Foundation stepped in.

Today, the Downtown and Avondale Libraries serve hundreds of sandwiches every year, as well as fresh fruit. Other branches have not yet experienced the same issues, so they do not serve meals at this time, but Library staff anticipate that those needs could change. Currently, staff and Library leadership see a need to expand the program to include healthy snacks after storytimes for the toddler and preschool kids.

A donation to the PB&J Fund helps us ensure the future success of Chattanooga’s youth. Feed the Children Foundation has proven through studies that good nutrition is critical for brain development and learning from infancy onwards. And here at the Library and the Library Foundation, we want to set children up for the most successful futures!

Please consider supporting this fund to ensure that local children have full minds, hearts and bellies.