Food for the Children

             As most of you know, I'm somewhat of a sap.  Not a make-a-huge-scene-in-public kind of sap but a cry-at-weddings-movies-commercials kind of sap.  Our local food bank has a program called The Backpack Program: Food for Kids.  There are backpack programs all over the nation but each is run a little differently according to the parent organization.  In Sioux City, volunteers make up the bags of food.  The Sioux City school district notifies the food bank of the number of children in need at each school served.  This program serves 6, soon to be 5, schools in the Sioux City area.  (Soon to be 5 because 2 schools are combining not because of lack of need.)  Each bag contains nutritionally sound items such as a fruit cup, granola bar, pudding, peanut butter crackers, etc.  The program does not focus on calorie content because the focus is about the children's hunger and providing shelf-stable child-friendly food.  The food bank does send an extra bag home if there is a younger sibling not attending school.  The logic is "If the 6-year old is hungry, the 4-year old is probably hungry too."  Every Friday bags of food are delivered to the schools for needy children.  These are children that normally qualify for free or reduced lunches at school and the school has identified as in need.  The food bank does dictate that the program be carried out to respect the dignity of the child.  This means that the bags are handed out very discreetly.  The bags are not handed out in front of the class.  It is up to the school how this will happen.  One of the schools has a backpack club.  An announcement is made over the intercom that the Backpack Club is meeting and the needy children go to the designated area.  There they receive their food bags.

            This amazing program does need help with funding.  The director of the food bank projected that $122,000 was needed for last school year and more will be needed for this school year due to rising food costs.  Roughly 50% to 90% of the children in the Sioux City school system use this program.  The percentage varies based on each specific school.  I'm proud to say that my employer is helping a little.  Our employee committee is holding a fund-raiser and the director spoke at our All-Staff meeting.  At three stations in the building are 2 jars.  One jar is empty; one jar has wrapped candy.  The premise is simple: Put a donation in the empty jar and take a piece of candy from the candy jar.  One of the jars is at my desk so I've contributed a little already.  We started yesterday and the jar at my desk already has over $12.  The program is running for 2 weeks so I'm really hoping we can help with the costs.  The director stressed that while food donations are nice, monetary donations are better.  The program needs pallets of food at a time for this program.  It's much easier for the food bank to meet the children's need with monetary donations than with food donations.  (But please keep donating food so the needy in general will have something to eat!)  The food bank director said that when the program started she spoke to the principals of the local elementary schools.  One of the principals said to her "If you start this program, you will have to keep it going because the kids will count on it.  Don't let them down."  So I'm asking all of you to take a look at the website for The Backpack Program: Food for Kids and consider donating to this program.  This program is not a touchy-subject program.  There are no moral lines being crossed.  It's about feeding kids simple as that.