Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Monday, December 05, 2011

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Each bag contains seven to 10 food items, so sometimes it's a tight fit in a student's backpack.

More than three dozen children at Northern Elementary School are in a brand-new club that sends them home with some special snacks every Friday afternoon. It’s part of the Feeding America network’s nationwide BackPack Program, whose goal is to provide nutritious, healthy food for kids at risk of hunger and to distribute it discreetly before they leave campus.

“It’s stuff they can open up on the weekend and eat if they’re not getting a hot lunch like at school. There’re ready-to-eat snacks and small meals for students,” said Ellen Shelton, director of the school’s Family Resource Center.

The food for Northern and 11 other school sites in Fayette County comes from God’s Pantry. Employees at CLARK Material Handling, a local forklift company, lend a hand by picking up the supplies at the food bank, packing the small plastic bags and delivering them to Northern.

When the BackPack Club members gathered for the Dec. 2 kickoff, Shelton explained how they will be called to the cafeteria right before dismissal time and how they’ll line up to receive their goody bags. She also urged the students to keep their backpacks zipped and not pull out any food until they get home.

“Out of all the kids in the school, only you guys are in the BackPack Club,” she told them.

Hopefully, the covert distribution system will prevent stigmas as well as squabbles over tasty treats like Cocoa Krispies, blueberry granola bars and fruit cups.

“They’ll have their backpacks ready and open, and all we’ll do is drop the bags in,” Shelton said. “We don’t want to single them out. We’re trying to make it like a fun program.”

God’s Pantry chooses schools based on the number of students who receive free or reduced-price meals, which depends on the family’s income being at or below a certain level. Nearly 85 percent of the children at Northern qualify. Although the student population exceeds 500, each school receives only 50 backpack bags per week.

“Obviously this is just a small piece of the puzzle,” Shelton noted.

God’s Pantry, which came on board with the BackPack Program in 2006, has added sites as funding allowed. In addition to Northern, FCPS locations include Breckinridge, Cardinal Valley, Cassidy, Dixie, Lansdowne, Mary Todd, Picadome and Russell Cave elementaries and Crawford, Morton and Winburn middle schools. (Cassidy and Morton share 50 bags.)

“The BackPack Program came about as a solution to a very real problem facing children in our country today,” God’s Pantry CEO Marian Guinn said in a news release. “Hunger is affecting so many families right here in Kentucky, and while we know that many parents are sacrificing meals to feed their children, we also know that sometimes even the kids in these homes are forced to go without.”

“This is an expensive program since such specific foods are needed, but such a worthwhile investment,” she added.

Each BackPack bag contains seven to 10 nonperishable items from the different food groups such as crackers, pudding cups, Pop-Tarts and microwavable meals like Chef Boyardee rice with chicken and vegetables. Everything is child-friendly and easy to open. Nothing requires stove-top cooking or extensive preparation.

“It’s kind of a safety net. During the week, the kids have a free breakfast and a free lunch. When they go home for the weekend, they don’t know if they’ll have food or not, or it might just be chips and soda,” said Rohan Krehbiel, youth service and nutrition coordinator at God’s Pantry. “The whole thing is to give them some sort of sustenance so that Monday morning they’re not famished and can still concentrate (in class).”

Did you know?

The BackPack Program sites will hand out double the food bags on Friday Dec. 16 heading into the school district’s two-week winter break.

To help

The total cost to operate a BackPack Program site for one school year is $7,178. Anyone can sponsor a child for $143.56, and gifts of any amount are always welcome.

God’s Pantry
1685 Jaggie Fox Way
Lexington, KY 40511

Rohan Krehbiel, (859) 288-5316

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