It’s a Snack Attack!
Seven parishes in the Episcopal Hunger Relief Network have partnered with neighboring public schools and Harvesters to make sure that kids don’t go hungry on the weekends. Many families living in poverty rely on free school breakfasts and lunches for their school-age children. Often those children don’t have enough to eat between Friday and Monday. Enter “BackSnacks.”
Here’s how the new BackSnacks program works: Harvesters provides food and backpacks; parish volunteers will pick up food, fill the backpacks and deliver them to schools. School officials will identify students who need assistance and send them home for the weekend with the backpacks full of food—and no one has to know there aren’t just books and homework inside. Each parish-school partnership can accommodate 30 students.
“Our hope is to expand this program both in Missouri and Kansas, so we can increase the number of disadvantaged children who can start each school week off with a full stomach,” says Deacon Allen Ohlstein, Director of the Episcopal Hunger Relief Network.
Partners include the Diocese of Kansas parishes of St. Aidan’s, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Michael & All Angels, and St. Thomas the Apostle, as well as the West Missouri parishes of St. Paul’s (KCMO), Good Shepherd and Grace Church, Liberty, which has had its own backpack program for a number of years.
Participating school districts are Olathe, Shawnee Mission, Kansas City and North Kansas City.