Help us Feed Our Children
B&T has partnered up with the local branch of Feeding the Gulf Coast (formerly Bay Area Feed Bank) and their Backpack program.
The mission of the Backpack Program is to meet the needs of chronically hungry children by providing them with nutritious and easy-to-prepare food to take home on weekends and school vacations when other resources are not available.
Feeding the Gulf Coast’s Backpack Program is located at elementary schools that have a high incidence of children in need. Each Backpack site distributes a pack of food to each participating child on Friday afternoon.
The teachers look for a multitude of signs in their students before reporting the number of children they believe face hunger issues in their homes. Some of the things teachers are told to look for — things like hoarding other children’s food at lunch, trying to pack lunch food into their backpacks to take home, taking food off other kid’s plates, and in the morning, if the child is listless and can’t pay attention, or if the child just complains of hunger.”
The teachers then will place the bags of food in the children’s backpacks while they are in recess so there is no social stigma attached to those who receive the food.
The names of all the children receiving the meals through this Program are kept confidential from the food bank and volunteers, only the teachers and the recipients are notified. Each bag contains enough food for six meals and two snacks. The typical backpack contains a variety of child-friendly, easy to prepare food usually including protein and fruit juices.
This program is currently supplying food to students in 12 schools through out Escambia County. Though at first, it sounds like this need is being met, but after speaking with Jessica Leggett, the coordinator at Feeding the Gulf Coast, they haven’t even begun to fill all the needs!
Just one example, there are 3 schools in which only 11 students receive these bags of food, however, ALL of the students qualify! The need is VERY great!
Our goal at B&T is to improve these numbers, that eventually NO child will go hungry at all!
If you would like to join this committee, or get information on how you or your business can contribute, please let us know below!