Over 63 percent of New York State’s children qualify for free or reduced meals in school. Their families rely on these resources to keep their children healthy and well-nourished during the week. But what happens to some of these kids once school lets out for the weekend or for holiday vacations? The Backpack Program is a ground-breaking new way to provide children from food-insecure households the nutritious food they need when they are not in school for extended periods of time such as weekends and long holidays.

The nation’s food bank network, America’s Second Harvest, operates closely with school faculty and staff at each site to identify children who are chronically experiencing hunger. This system is used, as opposed to basing it on family income, to focus on the needs of the individual child. In this way the food bank has been able to help students who may be experiencing food insecurity, but whose family unit may not meet criterion for conventional food assistance programs.

Every week, usually before the weekend, students receive a backpack full of shelf stable food that is easy to prepare as well as nutritious. The standard package includes two items from each food group to ensure that the student is getting the nutrition a young body needs. The packs are put together every month by volunteers at the Food Bank warehouse with food items including but not limited to: fruit cups, juice boxes, applesauce, fruit bars, oatmeal, granola bars, soup, macaroni and cheese, instant mashed potatoes, tuna, peanut butter, pudding and single serving packs of cereal. Second Harvest then ships out the packs and delivers them at the sites once a month.

Upholding the confidentiality of the student is an important aspect of the program. To ensure that confidentiality is not infringed upon, models of distribution vary from site to site. Some sites place packs right into student’s backpacks for the student to pick up at the end of the day while others have students come to a central distribution location to collect their food.

The Backpack Program first began operation in Arkansas in 1995 and has since expanded operations to 110 food banks within 39 states and Washington D.C., distributing over 35,000 backpacks each week. Since New York’s Pilot Program began at the Food Bank of the Southern Tier in October of 2005, the program has been praised by participants and site coordinators alike. It’s creatively crafted plan has proven to be extremely helpful in addressing the problem of childhood hunger within our state. During its pilot year in New York, the program served about 125 children each week at three separate sites. Now in its third year the program has grown dramatically as Second Harvest plans on providing food to approximately 700 chronically hungry children throughout the Southern Tier.

Whatever the method of distribution used, the program has and continues to grow because it is easy to run and requires very little funding. The program functions completely independent from the National School Lunch Program, instead relying on its strong base of volunteers, donations and food drives to keep it in operation. While the federal Child Nutrition Programs and the school lunch account are not part of this endeavor, school food service directors may collaborate with the food bank to help facilitate the process. However, it is the strong grassroots support of volunteers that keeps operation costs very low with the average cost per pack running between $1.50 and $2.00. Even with increased transportation costs over the past year it is estimated that the Backpack Program can be provided for just $65 per child, per year which is commendable.

For more information on Second Harvest’s Backpack program, direct questions to Ross Fraser at 312-641-6422 or rfraser@secondharvest.org. You may also contact Jennifer Bertron, Youth Programs Coordinator at the Food Bank of the Southern Tier at 607-796-6061 or jberton@secondharvest.org.