For many students the month of August brings to mind thoughts of tests, back-to-school clothes, and backpacks. For most, packing a backpack includes notebooks, pencils, highlighters, cellphones, and lunchboxes. Unfortunately, for many kids in the Brazos Valley, packing a prepared lunch or meal is not always a possibility. The Brazos Valley Food Bank hopes to change this.
In 2005 the BVFB partnered with Kemp Elementary School to start the BackPack program, says Shannon Avila, programs manager at BVFB. The BackPack program is a volunteer-based program that hands out backpacks for children in need. With approximately 14-16 food items, the child receives about six meals and two snacks in each bag.
The BVFB reaches out to elementary schools to find volunteers to act as coordinators between the BVFB and the children. Through this partnership the coordinators cultivate a list of children in need of backpacks, says Avila. Most kids will receive a backpack every week or every other week, depending on the school’s discretion, says Avila.
At the beginning of every school year, the BVFB hosts a training day for new volunteer coordinators and gives tips to the current coordinators.
“We work with the schools to train them and help them figure out how to best identify students at their school,” Avila says. “You know, the schools work with their kids every day. They’re really the experts on the families and students that they serve. So, we just kind of give them some tips and facilitate that exchange between the coordinators.”
The “backpacks” are actually plastic bags similar to the ones potatoes might come in at the grocery store. The reason the BVFB does not give out actual backpacks is so the children don’t draw attention to themselves. The convenience of the bags also makes it easier for kids to put them in their own backpack.
It is the coordinators job to discreetly deliver the bag to the child in need, without making it obvious to the other children. In one particular case Avila recalls a coordinator creating a “Test Tasting Club” in order to normalize the child receiving extra food.
Last school year the BVFB worked with 40 elementary schools in the surrounding counties. The program serves kids kindergarten through fifth grade, delivering approximately 45,000 bags throughout the course of the year, says Avila.
A challenge for both the schools and the BVFB is identifying children in need. “How can we go about serving the neediest students?” Avila asks. “How do we know which ones are the neediest?” Sometimes a child’s behavior due to a lack of food can be misconstrued as behavioral disorders, she says. Another factor that has to be taken into consideration is that if the child is hungry, there is a good chance there are other family members or house members who are hungry, too, and may have to share the contents of their backpack at home.
Though there are many food donations, the BVFB is not able to satisfy every hungry child. Every year the food bank is able to increase the number of bags and schools they distribute at, but it is still not enough, says Avila.
Another challenge the BVFB faces is managing all the logistics needed to keep the program running. All the coordinators have full-time jobs, and the BVFB stores and distributes more than 700 bags throughout all the schools, says Avila.
Fortunately, the BVFB recently hired a special programs coordinator, whose main concern is the BackPack program. The special programs coordinator’s goals for the program are to reevaluate the food menu, figure out the logistics of storing more bags in schools, and find the balance between convenience and nutrition in the foods they provide.
Visit www.bvfb.org/volunteering for more information on the BackPack program or other volunteer opportunities at the food bank.
