Enhancing Student Well-Being
Meeting Basic & Essential Needs Is Foundational to Learning
Children cannot fully focus on learning when they are worried about hunger, their health, or other basic needs. When students have consistent access to food, health care, and the school and personal supplies they need, they are better able to attend school regularly, engage in the classroom, and build the foundation they need to thrive. Research continues to affirm what educators and families already know: unmet basic needs can create serious barriers to academic success, affecting attendance, achievement, and overall well-being.
Food insecurity, for example, can have lasting effects on a child’s ability to learn and grow. Studies show that children experiencing food insecurity are more likely to struggle academically, score lower in reading and math, and face greater challenges with attendance and emotional well-being. These barriers do not reflect a lack of potential; they reflect a lack of access to the basic resources every child deserves.
The Albemarle Foundation for Education believes that meeting children’s basic and essential needs is not separate from education; it is essential to it.
Families Helping Families Fund
This is how we invest in students’ basic and essential needs. In Albemarle County Public Schools, 39.5% of students, representing 5,525 children at the start of the 2025–2026 school year, come from families who self-identified as economically disadvantaged. During the 2024–2025 school year, 353 students were identified as experiencing homelessness, which is the highest number on record. These trends mean thousands of students may face challenges outside the classroom that directly affect their ability to succeed inside it.
When you give to the Families Helping Families Fund, you help provide everyday needs, strengthen food security, and expand access to dental health care.
Impact
Providing Everyday Needs
Everyday essentials help create the stability students need to come to school prepared, confident, and ready to learn.
Students have access to school supplies, hygiene products, household cleaning supplies, and families experiencing homeless receive Emergency Stay Kits .
In 2025, 1700 students received backpacks and school supplies at the 2025 Back to School Bash!
Strengthening Food Security
Strengthening food security helps ensure students and families have reliable access to food resources so children can focus and succeed academically.
Food security efforts include, but are not limited to, Mobile Market food distribution before school breaks, snacks during and after school, and grocery store gift cards for families.
Thank you, Bama Works Fund, for the $53,000 investment in food security for ACPS families. This support helped us increase our impact, reaching over 600 families so far!
Increasing Dental Health
Increasing access to dental health care helps remove a critical barrier to student well-being, school attendance, and readiness to learn
Thirty-eight percent of ACPS students are without a dentist, reducing access to routine preventive care as well as urgent treatment when needed. Approximately 1,400 students also lack health insurance, increasing the risk that dental issues will go untreated.
With support from Sentara Cares, $14,000 was invested in expanding access to dental services and improving students’ dental health.
Make a Donation
By investing in students and families, donors help remove barriers, strengthen stability, and create the conditions for children to learn with confidence, dignity, and hope. This is how we help ensure that every child has the opportunity not just to get by, but to thrive.