Feeding families, fighting local hunger

Backpack Buddies program takes a stand against
food insecurity in Jefferson County

Ashley Hunter
ECB Publishing, Inc.

For most families, there is food in the pantry and refrigerator. When students leave their classroom to go home for the evenings and weekends, most children don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 88.9 percent of American families in 2018 were “food secure,” meaning that those families lived in a position of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food while at home.
The remaining families, however, are considered “food insecure,” meaning that they might struggle with the uncertainty of having enough food to meet the needs of their family. The USDA says that food insecurity can take place either through financial strain or by limited food resources in the area.
Locally, food insecurity impacts many Jefferson County families every day, with several children depending on the free meals that are provided by their school. When these students go home for the weekend, however, there is often no assurance that there will be breakfast, lunch or dinner meals for the families.
No child should go hungry – that was the core belief that led to the founding of the Jefferson County Backpack Buddies program.
For the last several years, the program’s coordinators Michelle Dollar and Tracy Peters have made sure that children from food-insecure families don’t have to worry about where their weekend meals are coming from.
“We are accustomed to hearing about hungry children in third-world countries,” writes the two program coordinators. “But it may come as a surprise to learn that we have hundreds of children in our own community who do not receive enough nutritious food.”
According to Peters and Dollar, children from food-insecure families are able to receive free breakfasts and lunches from their school, but often do not have enough food resources at home on the weekends.
That, Peters and Dollar say, is where their volunteer-organized program comes in and assists.
The Jefferson County Backpack Buddies program launched during the 2015-16 school year, with the original aim to make sure that 10 children would be able to go home each weekend with a bag full of nutritious food.
Since those beginnings, the program has expanded, with the current 2019-20 school year now seeing 150 families receive food packages each weekend.
The Backpack Buddies volunteers meet regularly to package and sort donated foods into easily-carried bags which are, in turn, concealed in the backpacks of the food-insecure children.
According to Dollar, the 150 families that are in need of food supplements through the program are identified by the school, and the identities of the children and families are kept completely anonymous from the Backpack Buddies volunteers.
For 150 anonymous children and families, the volunteers spend countless hours and money making sure no one has to go hungry.
The majority of the food that goes home in student backpacks is provided to the program by the Second Harvest of the Big Bend. Dollar says that their organization purchases 50 weekend meals (at $5 a piece), and Second Harvest donates 100 more. Each meal pack includes breakfast cereal, milk, canned fruit and vegetables, a meat-product (such as canned spaghetti or soup) and a snack. Dollar notes that the meals are a base, and that most children will eat more than what is included in the pack.
“We looked at them and thought, ‘our kids would definitely eat more than that in a weekend,’” said Dollar.
With that in mind, the Backpack Buddies began to take in donations from the community; donated food items such as rice, breakfast bars, canned vegetables and other nonperishables are added to the bagged meals from Second Harvest to help bolster the provided food.
The program does more than provide weekend meals for families who are struggling with food insecurity, the program also donates Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner supplies as well as gifts for children and parents.
This year, the Backpack Buddies volunteers and their community sponsors have packaged several Christmas gifts for the 150 families who are part of this program. Just like many other families around Christmas time, Jefferson County’s food-insecure families will be able to enjoy opening presents around the Christmas tree and sharing a delicious ham dinner.
While the program is still going strong after several years of service and blessing to Jefferson County families, Michelle Dollar says that the Backpack Buddies program still needs plenty of community support.
The program accepts monetary donations (which are used to purchase meals from Second Harvest, and all additional funds go towards buying groceries to restock their surplus food) through the First Presbyterian Church of Monticello. Checks can be made out to the church (who is the program’s financial host), with a line item of “Backpack Buddies” so that the church knows to set the funds aside for the program. All monetary donations are tax-deductible.
In addition, the program is always looking for food donations. Currently on their wishlist is jars of peanut butter and jelly, raisins or other dried fruits, cereal or granola bars, snack foods such as pretzels or crackers, cans of soup, instant potatoes or rice, cans of ready-to-eat pasta, fruit cups, fruit juice, and cans of chicken, tuna, Vienna sausages or vegetables.
Michelle Dollar, Tracy Peters and their volunteers also ask for prayer – the program is entirely funded and directed by a staff of volunteers, and they ask that prayer warriors assist by invocating for the program to continue serving as a blessing.
“We have been overwhelmed with the love and support of this community in helping to start this program,” writes Dollar and Peters. “We are confident that our mighty God is leading and directing us as we move forward in serving Him by feeding His children.”
Those interested in getting involved in the Backpack Buddies program can do so by contacting Michelle Dollar at (229) 337-0023 or mmdollar@bellsouth.net, or Tracy Peters at (840) 354-1876 or tm.peters@yahoo.com