When my students pick up their food bag on Friday, it is like the worry just disappears from their face. No child should have to worry about where their next meal should come from. This program is AWESOME!
The BackPack Program provides children with nutritious and easy-to-prepare food to take home on weekends and school vacations when other resources are not available. More than 22 million children receive free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program and the National School Breakfast Program. For many of these children, school meals may be the only meals they eat. What happens 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 to get enough to eat on the weekends. Today, bags of food are assembled at more than 160 local Food Banks like ours and then distributed to more than 450,000 children at the end of the week.
The Food Bank of Northeast Louisiana started our local BackPack Program in 2007. We currently provide BackPacks for 800 students every week schools in Ouachita and Lincoln Parishes. Each bag is lovingly packed by a local volunteer, and made possible through your generous donations. With your help, we can provide more food to more children in need.
