While many families stock up kids with turkey sandwiches and other holiday leftovers, hundreds of school kids across Georgia go without.
Alessandra Ferrara-Miller, who founded the non-profit All For Lunch, said she started to notice the need among her daughter's classmates.
"Well, I was just looking around at all these little kids and it just broke my heart thinking of them going through that lunch line and having their food taken away and not understanding why," Ferrara-Miller said.
One in six children across the United States doesn't know where they're getting their next meal, according to Feeding America. Many students rely on lunchtime at school as their only meal.
"(A child in need) just knows she's hungry. She gets in line, goes through ... if you know she didn't have the money ... I can't imagine that thought process that kid would have to go through. Why can't I eat like my friends?" Ferrara-Miller said.
That's when Ferrara-Miller said she knew she had to take action -- and helped raise $500 for lunches at schools in Gwinnett County.
With schools closing their doors for the holidays, many of those kids go hungry. But, this holiday, two DeKalb County Schools won't have to thanks to an anonymous donor who, like Ferrara-Miller, saw the need in their community.
Woodward and Stone Mountain elementary schools are keeping their doors open this holiday season to serve hot meals to students and families. On Thursday, over 90 people received a hot lunch at Woodward Elementary.
"It does touch your heart. You don't realize sometimes how needed those meals are," said Jacqueline Bailey, school nutrition coordinator for DeKalb County Schools.
Woodward Elementary is a Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) school, meaning that during the school year, breakfast and lunch are free for students. However, that's just not the case for many schools in Georgia where some kids have their food thrown away if they can't pay - or get an alternative like bread and peanut butter.