With the price of food increasing , more and more Americans are becoming food insecure. This Dollar Tree Dinners Meal in a Bag service project is both meaningful and practical for your troop to complete.
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It is not news to anyone reading this blog post that food prices are steadily increasing. For many families, the struggle to put food on the table is real. The number of clients that have to use food pantries to supplement their grocery cart has markedly increased.
What is a family to do?
Here comes Rebecca Chobat to the rescue!
Rebecca is a content creator on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Seattle Refined wrote an in depth article about her that you may want to share with your troop. In this article, Rebecca shares her process of creating her meals as well as what inspired her. When she was in her 20s, she had to sell plasma just to buy groceries, so she knows first hand about the struggle.
What are Dollar Tree Dinners Meal in a Bag?
Dollar Tree “meals in a bag” are simple, budget-friendly meal kits created entirely from ingredients found at Dollar Tree. Each bag contains everything needed for one complete meal, and are often shelf-stable items like pasta, sauces, canned vegetables, beans, rice, seasonings, or packaged proteins. These meals are designed to be affordable, easy to assemble, and require minimal cooking skills or equipment. Leaders often use them for service projects, food-drive additions, or emergency meal kits because they’re inexpensive to make and can be stored for long periods without refrigeration.
They are important because they help address food insecurity in a practical, accessible way. Many families live far from full grocery stores or struggle with rising food costs, so having ready-made meal kits stocked with familiar and easy-to-use ingredients can make a real impact. Dollar Tree meals in a bag are also a meaningful community service opportunity for Girl Scouts as they learn about budgeting, nutrition basics, and the power of helping your community. By assembling these bags, they support local food pantries and neighbors in need while gaining a deeper understanding of how communities work together to help one another.
During a troop meeting, you can discuss what Dollar Tree meals in a bag are and then decide if this is a project they want to do. If your girls want to make these meal kits, then you will need to decide if a field trip to go shopping with the troop needs to be organized or if you will purchase the food on your own. In my opinion, having the girls shop for the food will make the most impact on them.
What Do You Need to Create Dollar Tree Meals in a Bag?
Another thing to do before doing this community service project is to call your local food bank and make sure that these meal kits are welcome.
You will need the recipes. At this link, Rebecca has all the printable recipe cards, so your girls can decide which meals to buy. These cards will be printed and inserted into the plastic bag.
Other items you will need:
Bulk gallon sized plastic bags
Can Dollar Tree Dinners Meals in a Bag Help Earn Girl Scout Badges?
If your troop is looking to earn a badge, many of the cookie budget badges have the girls making a budget. Your troop can do this service project as one of the steps and set aside money to do it. If you still have money from last year’s budget, how much will be allocated for this project and how many meals can they purchase?
In addition, if your troop is earning any of the food badges, they can make Dollar Tree meals in a bag recipes or any of the others on Rebecca’s Goggle Drive.
Are Dollar Tree Dinners meals in a bag something your troop will be doing this year?
Would love to have your recipes
The link is in the blog post!