Blessings in a Backpack
Feeding the Future of TOWN
Mission
Blessings in a Backpack provides food for elementary school children across America who may otherwise have little or no food to eat on weekends during the school year. Blessings works towards this mission by providing backpacks full of food to elementary school children on the free or reduced price meal program each Friday of the school year.
Organization’s Goals and Accomplishments
Please list the goals and accomplishments of the organization.
Founded in 2008 in Kentucky with a goal of providing weekend nutrition to hungry children, Blessings in a Backpack has grown to a national organization that is serving more than 72,000 school children at 700 schools in 44 U.S. states and Washington D.C. this school year. Each site is led by passionate volunteers who—with support from Blessings in a Backpack's national office—secure food, fill backpacks, and distribute backpacks each school week to children who face food insecurity.
With its entrepreneurial, grass-roots structure, Blessings has experienced 700% growth since its incorporation in 2008. This remarkable growth would not be possible without the dedication of thousands of volunteers and partners in communities throughout the country, uniting to ensure their community’s children have the proper nutrition they need to be active, healthy children. Organizational highlights include:
· People Magazine: Blessings was chosen by People Magazine to partner with them in the People First Help Feed a Child 2012 Charity of the Year. Throughout this initiative, Blessings was spotlighted in four articles and two public service announcements in People Magazine and was featured numerous times on the People Magazine website.
· The U.S. Department of Education: In September 2013, Blessings co-hosted a hunger awareness event with The U.S. Department of Education Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Senator Dick Durbin, and White House Chef Sam Kass, among others.
· United States Conference of Mayors: On June 23, 2014, theUnited States Conference ofMayorspassed a resolution at its 82nd annual meeting in Dallas declaring Thursday, September 18, 2014 “Blessings in a Backpack Day,” during whichmayorsacross the country will participate in packing bags full of food for children in their communities who need it most.
Project Description
Provide a brief description of how funding will be used.
On Fridays this school year, more than ### students in TOWN will leave school uncertain if they will have food to eat this weekend. These students are fed Monday through Friday by the federal Free and Reduced Price Meal program. But what do these children eat on the weekends?
“Feeding the Future of TOWN” will address this problem by providing weekend nutrition to ### low-income children during the ####-#### school year. Activities to support this work include:
· Training, supporting and retaining volunteers as they work to raise support from their communities, purchase groceries and pack backpacks
· Providing backpacks full of food to ### students each week of the school year, and monitoring and evaluating the impact of that work
· Developing and managing relationships with a myriad of partners, including schools, school districts, food providers, community groups, corporations, funding partners and individuals
· Advocating on the issue of childhood hunger and engaging the community in Blessings’ work
Each school week, food is transported to the school where a team of volunteers pack the backpacks and give them to the teachers to distribute at the school week’s end. The backpacks are nondescript so the children cannot be identified. Depending on the school, sometimes food is packed in plastic bags that are then put inside students’ regular backpack. Menu items are child-appropriate and vary dependent on each site’s food partner and the community being served. Examples include oatmeal, granola bars, ravioli, vegetables, raisins and other fruit. On Monday mornings, after a weekend of not knowing hunger, children return to school, ready to learn.
Throughout the year, Blessings’ national office and community-level volunteers work to engage the community in its efforts to ensure the school’s students have access to nutrition every day of the school year. This work includes reaching out the media outlets; engaging businesses, community organizations, and individuals in Blessings’ work; and building partnerships with food providers, school administration, and volunteers. These efforts ensure the program has the support necessary to feed as many children as possible and ensure the program long-term success.
Measure of Progress
Briefly describe how you measure progress for this program.
Blessings in a Backpack’s desired goal for “Feeding the Future of TOWN” is that ### low-income children in TOWN have weekend nutrition for a 38-week school year. Blessings works towards this goal through the following measurable indicators:
*### low-income children in TOWN have access to nutrition on the weekends during the school year due to receiving backpacks full of food from Blessings.
*### volunteers in TOWN are impacting the issue of childhood hunger.
Progress toward these goals are monitored through a variety of tools, including backpack distribution reports, semester reports, volunteer surveys and staff management reports. These tools will be used to analyze the project’s progress towards its goals and its impact, make modifications for future activities, and communicate the project’s results with its funding partners and the greater community.
The benefits for these children are manifold. Long term, childhood hunger can lead to a weaker immune system, increased hospitalization rates, and impaired neural development, leading to lower IQs and lower academic achievement. Short term, unmet nutritional needs make it very difficult for children to learn, pay attention in class and behave properly to retain knowledge. Consistent nutrition is necessary for children to participate at school. Better test scores, improved reading skills, increased positive behavior, improved health and increased attendance have all been attributed to consistent childhood nutrition, such as what Blessings helps provide.
The impact Blessings expects to achieve is to have children fed, focused and at school, ready to learn. By ensuring these children arrive at school on Monday without the burden of hunger, teachers, schools, and other community organizations can have their desired impact on these children. As the week progresses, children do not start worrying about what they will eat on the weekend because they know Blessings and their community is there.
Blessings was founded when a teacher realized her students were returning to school on Mondays hungry and unable to concentrate. Since that teacher moved her community to help feed its children, many school administrators, teachers, and parents have shared stories about how Blessings allows children to focus on school and just being children instead of from where their next meal will come.
This past November, a school principal told us that a second grade girl at her school was caught stealing food. The principal asked her why she stole the food, and the student said it was because she did not have any food at home. The principal contacted Department of Children and Family Services, who visited the girl’s home after school on a Friday evening. The only food in the entire home was what was in the girl’s Blessings backpack. How can children be healthy, grow and learn without consistent nutrition?
Feedback from other program stakeholders includes:
* Volunteer program coordinator: “This has made a big difference for families in need. This is a great example of what a community can do. Children don’t have to be hungry.”
* School principal: “This is an amazing program. We see an increase in test scores, behavior and attendance when students are getting their needs met.”
* District Superintendent: “This shows the power of collaboration and partnership, and the community can rally around a cause with an ultimate result and a lot will benefit.”
* Corporate Partner: “The benefits are manifold. Number one is, attendance goes up. When attendance goes up, the students’ performance, grades and test scores go up.”