Tenet’s cereal drive targets hungry kids

By the time Tenet Healthcare Corp. finished it’s 10th annual Healthy Over Hungry Cereal Drive last month, it had collected 4.5 million bowls of the breakfast food.

The charitable drive aims to provide breakfast for low-income families, emphasizing children who lose access to school-based nutrition programs during their summer break.

The drive gathered donations at its 560 sites, amassing boxes of cereal to distribute to 100 local food banks and pantries.

Four-year-old Marc Zeilmann kicked off the drive at Baptist Health System in San Antonio by getting behind the wheel of a mini tractor-trailer. The son of a Baptist Health nurse, he drove around the facility to collect donations.

“Our caregivers and supporting colleagues work hard to improve the health and well-being of our neighbors and ultimately save lives, and we are deeply grateful for their efforts,” said Ron Rittenmeyer, Tenet’s executive chairman and CEO, said in a news release. “We are inspired by their compassion and energized by their unfaltering commitment to not only fight hunger but support numerous initiatives to foster healthier communities.”

General Mills helped pitch in by donating 1,400 boxes of its cereals.

A Tenet nurse helped launch the drive in Detroit in 2010, and it went national in 2014. Since 2014, the hospital chain estimates more than 19 million cereal servings have been distributed, and $1.16 million has been donated to help children and others who are food-insecure.