The Teacher Who Started It All: Our Story
For Children Partners Inc. was founded in 2022 by E.K. Simmons, a Wake County teacher who began personally buying food for students who couldn't afford school meals. That grew into a nonprofit that now partners directly with Wake County schools to fund meals for children who fall outside federal assistance eligibility.
Every nonprofit has an origin story. Ours starts in a single classroom, with a teacher who wasn't trying to start an organization at all. She was just trying to make sure her students could get through the school day.
A Story That's More Common Than You'd Think
In 2022, E.K. Simmons was teaching in a Wake County school when she noticed something that a lot of teachers quietly notice but rarely talk about: some of her students weren't eating. Not because their parents didn't care, but because of circumstances entirely outside a child's control: a forgotten lunch account, a missed application deadline, a family stretched thin between rent and groceries that month.
So she did what a lot of teachers end up doing, often without telling anyone. She started using her own money to buy food for the students who needed it.
It's a quiet, common act of generosity happening in classrooms all over the country. Teachers are frequently the first people to notice a child is hungry, long before a school counselor, a nurse, or a formal support system does. Research on childhood hunger consistently points to teachers as informal first responders, simply because they're the adults spending the most consistent hours with a child, watching for the small signs: the student who's unusually tired at 10 a.m., who has trouble focusing, who seems anxious around lunchtime.
But one teacher's grocery runs can only stretch so far.
The Moment It Became Something Bigger
For E.K., the tipping point was realizing this wasn't a one-student, one-classroom problem. It was happening across the school, and almost certainly across the district. Children were being denied breakfast or lunch not because of anything they'd done, but because of a forgotten lunch account, a paperwork gap, or a family income that fell just outside federal assistance cutoffs.
The idea that a child could go hungry at school simply because their family lacked the means to pay, in one of the fastest growing, most resourced counties in North Carolina, was the moment that sparked action.
For Children Partners Inc. was founded to make sure that never had to happen again.
From One Classroom to a County Wide Mission
What started as one teacher covering costs out of pocket has grown into a nonprofit built around a simple mission: partner directly with Wake County schools to identify children in need, and remove the financial barriers that keep them from eating during the school day, regardless of whether their family qualifies for federal assistance.
That last part matters more than people realize. As covered in our piece on What Is Nutrition Insecurity?, a meaningful share of food insecure children in Wake County, by some estimates over 40%, don't qualify for free or reduced price meal programs at all. Their household income sits just above a federal cutoff that doesn't account for the real cost of living in this area. These are exactly the students who tend to fall through every existing safety net, and exactly who For Children Partners was built to reach.
Today, that looks like:
Direct partnerships with individual schools to identify students with unmet meal needs
Covering meal account costs so kids aren't turned away or singled out at the register
Working alongside teachers and school staff, the same people who first spot the problem, to make sure help reaches a child quickly, without red tape
Why the "One School at a Time" Approach Matters
We could have tried to build something that looked like a national campaign from day one. Instead, we stayed close to what actually worked: real relationships with real schools, real teachers flagging real students, and real meals getting funded, not a formula, not a waitlist.
It's slower. It's also how you make sure a child who's hungry today doesn't wait weeks for a system to catch up.
Still the Same Mission
Every dollar donated to For Children Partners goes directly toward providing school meals. A school meal costs approximately $5.25 per child per day, and 100% of every tax-deductible donation goes straight to that cost, not overhead. It's the same principle E.K. Simmons started with in her own classroom: if a child needs to eat, you don't wait for permission, you make it happen, and you figure out how to make it sustainable after.
That's still exactly what we're doing, one school, one child, one meal at a time.
Be Part of the Next Chapter
Donate today to help fund a child's school meals, or reach out if you're a Wake County teacher, counselor, or school staff member who has noticed a student in need. That's exactly the kind of tip that starts everything we do. Donate Today | Contact Us
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded For Children Partners, and when?
For Children Partners Inc. was founded in 2022 by E.K. Simmons, a Wake County teacher who began personally funding school meals for students in her own classroom before growing the effort into a formal nonprofit.
Why does For Children Partners focus only on Wake County?
The organization deliberately stayed local rather than expanding broadly, prioritizing direct relationships with individual schools so that a child flagged as needing help gets support quickly, without bureaucratic delay.
How is For Children Partners different from federal school meal assistance?
Federal programs like the National School Lunch Program are based on household income cutoffs. For Children Partners specifically works with children who fall outside those cutoffs but still cannot reliably afford school meals, closing a gap federal programs do not cover.
How much does a school meal cost through For Children Partners?
Approximately $5.25 per child per day. 100% of every tax-deductible donation goes directly toward covering that cost.
Related Reading
About the Author
Written by the For Children Partners Program Team.
Reviewed by E.K. Simmons, Founder of For Children Partners Inc.
For Children Partners Inc. is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization (Federal Tax ID: 92-0864139), rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau. 100% of every tax-deductible donation goes directly toward providing school meals across Wake County, NC.
