The BackPack Program is designed to meet the needs of hungry children at times when other resources are not available, such as weekends and school vacations. In addition to providing nutritious food to school children in need, some BackPack Programs provide extra food for younger siblings at home and others operate during the summer months when children are out of school and have limited access to free or reduced-priced meals. Here is how the program works:

Gallon sized Ziplock bags: Quality is important here because it does hold a lot of food.

Peanut butter crackers: This is the easiest thing we can think of to fill a void at this time.

Individual vegetable servings: Wal-Mart has plastic cups of green beans and carrots, perfect for what we are doing. There are also individual serving sized cans.

Plastic spoons and forks: We don't expect them to eat with their hands, and cannot assume they have untensils at home.