Child Nutrition
Backpacks for Kids
61% of Humboldt County children are eligible to receive free or reduced-cost meals at school. For many working and struggling families, these meals are a blessing and help keep children fed in difficult times. However, school meals are not available on weekends, and many children go home to empty cupboards. Being at risk for hunger over the weekend makes it hard to complete homework and come to school on time, healthy and ready to learn.
Our Backpacks for Kids program helps close the gap for many local schoolchildren, to reduce the stress of weekend hunger and to help children develop into their healthiest and most successful selves. Children who come to school well fed on Monday morning behave and perform better in their classrooms, which helps them and their peers succeed in school.
The Backpacks for Kids Program provides income-eligible children with a bag of kid-friendly food on Fridays during the school year. Food for People provides the food for the program and dedicated community volunteers pack and deliver the backpacks to each school site. Each bag contains enough food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two days and serves nearly 600 children per week at 37 Humboldt County schools. Contact childnutrition@foodforpeople.org to find out if your child’s school is enrolled in the program.
Staff and teachers at each school work with families to enroll kids in the program and make sure they get their food on Fridays. Funding for the program is provided by local service clubs, grants, and individual donors in the community. Volunteer support is donated by service clubs, local nonprofits and others who help the program run smoothly and efficiently. Backpacks for Kids is truly a collaborative effort, and it takes a community to make the program successful.
Kids Summer Food Program
The Kids Summer Food Program is similar to our Backpacks for Kids program, however it operates in the summertime to fill the gap between school years and currently serves 200 kids at 6 sites throughout Humboldt County. These sites are more rural, and therefore may need some additional food support for qualifying families. We have offered the program to folks in Hoopa, Willow Creek, Manila, Loleta, and Redway. Participating children receive a bag of kid-friendly, easy to prepare food, packed with enough food to supplement their meals for a week. Foods include a quart of milk, cereal, beans, a jar of peanut butter, canned tuna and chicken, soups, canned beans, macaroni and cheese, granola bars, and a bag of fresh fruit and vegetables that mostly come from local farms in the area.
Contact childnutrition@foodforpeople.org for more information.
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