Help Harvesters feed KC area children
Children living in homes with too little food is unthinkable, especially during the holidays. Yet food insecurity is what one-in-five children in 26 counties face. It’s why The Kansas City Star and Harvesters — The Community Food Network are partnering for the third consecutive year to host a virtual food drive.
All of the money raised will go to Harvesters’ BackSnack program for kids. Recent articles have highlighted the program’s benefits. In the last two years more than $546,000 has been donated to the KC Challenge: Childhood Hunger program, reports Ellen Feldhausen, director of communications with Harvesters.
When Kansas Citians know of a need, they do a lot to help. That giving equates to providing almost 3,000 students with weekly BackSnacks for an entire year. Harvesters serves 17,000 students a week in 367 elementary schools, which costs $250 per student, per year.
The kids in 98 school districts in the free-and-reduced lunch program get four pounds of food every weekend to take home, offering nutritious meals to keep them from being hungry when they aren’t in school. Harvesters hopes to serve 19,000 students by the end of the 2012-2013 school year. But Feldhausen said there actually are 42,000 children in the region that Harvesters serves who could use the BackSnack program. “We know there are a lot of children who go to bed at risk of being hungry at night,” she said.
The benefits of BackSnacks are significant. Properly nourished children can perform better academically, have better attendance and face fewer discipline problems.
Donors to BackSnacks deserve a pat on the back. But because of the great need, there is a lot of room for folks to do more.
To make a donation, go to feedingkckids.harvesters.org.
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