Communities In Schools programs are located in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Tarrant County. During the school week many children have a balanced breakfast or lunch in school but on weekends food, especially nutritious food, is a rarity. In partnership with the Tarrant Area Food Bank , CIS staff in five schools send backpacks loaded with nutritious food home with needy children every weekend.
Watching the Clock, Counting the Hours Until School Starts…So They Can Eat Again.
What Happens On The Weekend?
During the school week many children have a balanced breakfast or lunch in school. During the weekend however, many of our students grow hungrier by the hour. Instead of focusing on homework, reading or even just being a kid, they are thinking about when they will eat next or where they can find some food. If they do eat, their choices are often limited to inexpensive food items like chips or candy bars with empty calories and little nutritional value.
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Food Is Fuel.
Without proper nutrition on the weekends, these students are starting the week off on empty. It is by no means a stretch of the imagination that “starting on empty” will quickly lead to “not starting the school week off at all”.
Back on Track
Backpack Food for Kids, a joint solution between CIS and the Tarrant Area Food Bank, helps get these students back on track by providing the nutrition needed to complete weekend assignments, get much needed rest and to come back to school on Monday refreshed and ready to learn.
Each Friday, non-descript backpacks filled with nutritious, ready-to-eat meal options are discretely handed out to pre-identified students. Students return the backpacks on Mondays in order for them to be refilled and picked up on the following Friday.
What You Can Do
- Sponsor A Backpack
- $72 Sponsors a backpack of food each weekend for an entire school year.
- $1,000 Sponsors backpacks for an entire school year for 14 children.
- Collect Kid Friendly Food Items in your school, neighborhood, church, team or club.
- Fill or Deliver Backpacks Volunteer to fill stomachs by placing collected items in backpacks.
From Inside the School
Getting Food To Those Who Need It Most
Operating in schools at which a minimum of 80% of the students are eligible for free and reduced-cost meals, this program is about helping the “neediest of needy children”.
On Thursdays, volunteers come to the school to help fill the backpacks. Backpacks are filled with kid-friendly food (meaning food that kids will eat and that does not require adult preparation). Each backpack is filled with enough food for each child in the house. On Friday mornings the backpacks are passed out – they know they won't go hungry this weekend.
Making A Difference
Parents consistently tell their children to thank CIS for the backpacks and express their appreciation with sentiments like “this is a God send”, and “I don't know what we'd do without this”, or with the simplest of gestures like a hug.
There have also been families that requested the backpacks when they were suffering a very difficult time, but after they overcame those obstacles, they returned the backpacks saying that they no longer needed them and that we need to give them to another family with greater need.
During the 2005/2006 school year the Backpack Food for Kids Program served 553 children in 4 schools each week keeping more kids in school and helping them to arrive ready to learn.
Helping Kids Prepare to Learn
As the only Tarrant County non-profit located in the schools, CIS has the opportunity to identify students who are most at risk of being hungry on the weekends and connect them with community resources like the Backpack Food for Kids Program from the Tarrant Area Food Bank. CIS connects students with community resources to help them learn, stay in school and prepare for life. |
