Backpack Buddy
Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Food Bank program provides food for kids over the weekend

The Houston Food Bank knows that there is a link between hunger and learning: Children who come to school hungry are more likely to have difficulties concentrating in class, experience tardiness and are more prone to chronic illness. The National School Lunch Program provides free or reduced lunches and, in some schools, breakfasts, but what happens when these children go home on Friday? Many of the children who depend on free or reduced lunch programs during the school week go home to meager or no meals over the weekend.

That’s where the Houston Food Bank’s Backpack Buddy program comes in. The Food Bank partners with schools and teachers to identify children who are or might be chronically hungry and discretely distribute the Backpack Buddy bags every Friday to children participating in the program.

Each bag contains enough nutritious and vitamin-rich food to make two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners and two snacks. A typical bag might contain cans or jars of: chicken, ravioli, peanut butter, applesauce, peas, and corn, as well as a box of macaroni and a large box of cereal.

The teachers whose students are participating in the Backpack Buddy program experience first-hand the difference these bags of food make in their students’ lives, and see the excitement on the children’s faces each week.

“The school attendance rate of the students who participate in the Backpack Buddy Program has improved significantly,” a teacher from Sneed Elementary said. “On Monday morning the students are energetic and focused on learning.”

Another teacher from Sheldon Early Childhood Academy said that they’ve noticed a difference in the attention span and focus of children in the Backpack Buddy program. “Also, students seem happier and loved. It is wonderful.”

“I have a little girl at my school who doesn’t smile very much, and she always smiles when she receives her sack of food on Friday!” a teacher from Longfellow Elementary School said.

The Backpack Buddy program, which began with just three schools in 2006, has now grown to include 440 Houston area schools and is distributing thousands of backpacks each month. In the month of May alone, 26,807 backpack bags were distributed. In the upcoming school year, the Food Bank aims to have 550 schools participating in the Backpack Buddy program, as well as to continue focusing on nutrition and improving the processes of the program.

For more information about Backpack Buddy, including information on how to bring the program to your school, contact Lauren Horton at 832-369-9205.