How can a child focus on solving a math problem or memorizing a new word when she or he is trying to ignore the persistent pangs of hunger?
Across the country, teachers and school nurses have found that in some instances, Monday morning comes and they are forced to compete against hunger for the attention of their students. More than 18 million children qualify for free or reduced price meals through the National School Lunch Program, the fuel that they need to get them through the week. What happens to these children when they go home over the weekend?
For more than 15 years, the Feeding America BackPack Program has been helping children get the nutritious and easy-to-prepare food they need over the course of the weekend.
The DeKalb County School System’s Backpack program, through Coordinated School Health, began seven years ago as a means of providing essential foods to needy children over the holidays to keep them from going hungry. Since then the program has grown and now needy children get food to take home every week for the weekend when school is out. To keep up with the demand, more support is needed.
Cindy Childers, Assistant with the Coordinated School Health Program is asking for your help. “Each year we try to get it a little bit better and give a little bit more to the kids. We try to meet their needs to the best of our ability. This year we have started off with (number of children to be served) what we normally end our year with. I am a little concerned that our numbers are going to grow so much that we won’t make it past Christmas with the donations we’ve already received. I am asking you to please make a donation of food or money. We try to find things that a kindergarten or pre-school student can open up on their own, where they don’t need a stove or refrigeration, but that they can eat for themselves. All donations will go to the Backpack Program. We go a couple of times a month to SAMS’s and we buy in bulk what we think the children would like and what is healthy for them and gives them protein and vitamins. The hospital has also helped us with some food this year. We have churches and other organizations that have adopted schools so they pick up the food, pack it for us, and deliver it to the schools. Currently we have Whorton Springs Baptist Church, the Smithville First United Methodist Church, and the DeKalb West School BETA Club that are packing for us this year. We’d like to thank them,” said Childers.
Suggested individually packaged foods to donate for the BackPack program include: 100% juice in single serving unbreakable bottles, boxes, or pouches; small boxes or bags of nutritious cereal; nutritious snack/breakfast bars; fruit cups; small boxes of raisins or dried fruit; microwave popcorn; non-perishable single serve microwave kids meals; individually packaged crackers (peanut butter and crackers); Slim Jims, gummy fruit, pudding, instant oatmeal, peanuts, and Ramen noodles.
If you have questions or would like to help call 615-215-2161 or 615- 215-2118.
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