Backpack Program By Gretchen Elliott

Is There Food at Home?  More than 18 million children qualify for free or reduced price meals through the National School Lunch Program  What happens to these children when they go home over the weekend?

Problems in the Classroom  Teachers have found they are having to compete with hunger for students attention.  How can a child focus on solving a math problem or memorizing a new word when she or he is trying to ignore the hunger?

What is the Backpack Program?  For more then 15 years the backpack program has been giving children nutritious and easy to prepare meals to have over the weekend.  Bags of food are put together through 150 food banks in America  The food bags are given around 230,000 children each year.  A total of $100,000 is needed each year to support the proram.

Local Backpack Program  Second Harvest food bank of East Tennessee  Program Manager is Sam Compton  Just $5 a week will provide healthy food to a child.

What does the Child Receive?  The items are broken down into 4 categories: grain, dairy, fruit, and protein groups.  Two items from each group goes home with each child.  If student is receiving food to take home to younger siblings they will get 8 items for each sibling- 2 in each group.

Items Currently Being Offered Grain Group Animal Crackers Instant Oatmeal Fruit and Oatmeal Bars Special K Bars Cereal Boxes Granola Bars Dairy Group Pudding Cups Easy Mac n Cheese Instant Breakfast Cheese on Wheat Crackers Milk Boxes Fruit Group Applesauce Fruit Cups Orange Juice Apple Juice Fruit Bars Protein Group Peanuts Trail Mix Bars Peanut Butter Crackers Beef Stew Sunflower Seeds Beans and Franks

What About Summer Vacation?  Summer food program is also through local food banks.  Just over 2 million children received meals during the summer months.  May be meal based programs, or may be innovative distribution models that are specifically designed to fill the gap in services for children during the summer months.

Summer Food Program’s Objective  Provide nutritious, healthy meals, food packages, vouchers and/or snacks to children at-risk of hunger in the summer months when school is not in session

Quotes  "Now we have supper."  "I like the backpacks. My mom likes them too because we don't have a lot of food. Please do it again next year."

Works Cited  hunger/programs-and-services/child- hunger/backpack-program.aspx hunger/programs-and-services/child- hunger/backpack-program.aspx  Program.html Program.html