What is the BackPack Program?
The BackPack Program allows children to bring home
nutritious food when other resources are not available, such as on the
weekends or during school vacations. BackPacks are filled by PAL, Police,
Firemen, childcare providers and parent volunteers with child-friendly,
non-perishable, and vitamin fortified food, as well as educational
activities. The backpacks are then discreetly distributed to the at-risk
children of the childcare facility.
The Backpack program concept originated in several
places one being the Arkansas Rice Depot in
Little Rock
where a school nurse at an inner-city school asked for
help because hungry students were coming to her with stomach aches and
dizziness. In response, the food bank began providing the school children
groceries in non-descript backpacks to carry home, freeing them of the
stigma of poverty that many low-income children face among their peers.
The Goal is for 10,000 Backpacks to be filled with
food and handed out to children who are in need thru PAL.
