Junior League of Minneapolis

Backpack Buddies’ mission is to reduce the effects of childhood hunger by providing nutritious, easy-to- prepare food over the weekend to kids in food insecure homes in the greater Twin Cities area. The objective is to bridge the gap between Friday and Monday when food may not be available, and thereby provide a bit of security for the participating children and their families.

Goals for program in 2010-2011

1.     Provide 300 students (two grades) with 5 pounds of food per week for the 2010/2011 school year.

2.     Raise awareness in the community of the need.

3.     Provide nutritional and health & wellness education awareness, along with the food.

4.   Create a self-sustaining program in 5 years.

In our first year, we identified a local school (Andersen Open Elementary School) that has an overwhelming number of students who quality for the free and reduced-cost lunch programs.  We were able to feed the first grade glass of roughly 150 students every weekend throughout the school year.

We are fortunate to be an agency of Second Harvest Heartland, the Upper Midwest’s largest hunger-relief organization, so that we can purchase food at very low cost on a consistent basis.  

Now in our second year, we are continuing to provide backpacks for the same children who were in the program last year – who have now moved on to second grade – and have added the new first grade glass.

Hunger Facts

More than 1 out of 6 children live in food insecure households in the U.S. – meaning, they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. We all know the importance of nutrition for physical and mental health. Imagine the consequences of not having enough food – let alone nutritious food – as a child.

Some effects of food insecurity and hunger are:

• A weaker immune system, leading to more illness and more hospitalizations (children in food insecure homes are 30 % more likely to be hospitalized), which in turn is a cost to the family
• Poor academic performance, such as grade repetition, absenteeism, tardiness, anxiety, aggression, poor mathematics scores, psychosocial dysfunction and difficulty with social interaction among 6 to 12 year old children
• Developmental risks, such as low height for age, and slower cognitive development

If you have any questions or want to get involved, please contact the Backpack Buddies leadership at backpackbuddies@jlminneapolis.org.

Research cited from Feeding America website http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101/child-hunger-implications.aspx and Hunger in the U.S. website http://www.frac.org/html/hunger_in_the_us/health.html.