Backpacks for Fridays
Southeast Missouri Food Bank partners with local area schools to provide weekend backpacks of food to more than 1,000 students. These students, who are selected by teachers and counselors, receive personal packages of weekend food each Friday before they leave school. The packages contain nutritious, non-perishable, kid-friendly meals and snacks that can be eaten without any preparation if necessary. The program alleviates the strain felt by many southeast Missouri families to provide nutritious meals to their children over the weekend.
A donation of $175 will provide a weekend backpack for one child throughout the 36-week school year.
For more information on the Backpacks for Friday program, please contact Jessica at 573-471-1818 or email jespinoza@semofoodbank.org. For program forms to download, click here.
A Better Childhood Mobile Food Pantry
Southeast Missouri has some of the highest rates of child hunger in the state with an estimated one in five children living in a home considered food insecure, meaning they don’t have the resources to provide enough healthy food for the family.
A Better Childhood (ABC) Mobile Food Pantries, pantries held exclusively for school students and their families, help respond to those needs. The food distributions are usually held on school campuses or at other community-friendly sites. Students and their families receive a variety of shelf stable and fresh foods during the distribution and take home 30-40 pounds of food. The ABC Pantry programs poses little burden to the school but make a significant impact on the lives of its students.
The food bank works with school and community partners to hold A Better Childhood food pantry distribution. For more information about the program, contact us at 573-471-1818 or email sminfo@semofoodbank.org.