Butterfield City Council promotes this Sunday, September 21 for the Watonwan County Backpack program
The Butterfield City Council is promoting this Sunday, September 21 as “Backpack Sunday,” bringing awareness to the Watonwan County Backpack program.
The program will make its official debut on Friday, October 3 in elementary schools across the county.
Town meetings have also been held to provide county communities with more information on the program, develop a volunteer network and establish the group, “Backpack Friends.”
The program will provide food for youth who are food insecure and/or qualify for the free and reduced lunch programs in their schools to cover weekends outside of the typical school week.
The backpacks will be stuffed with easy-to-prepare food that are chock full of proteins, grains and fruit. The food, which will be purchased locally will include, for any given weekend, applesauce, juice boxes, snack containers, crackers and microwaveable canned goods (easy enough for young children to prepare). The guide for building the rotating four-week menus has come from recommendations by Feed The Children, a national organization that has been devoted for 35 years to end child hunger.
Enough money has been raised so far top feed 160 students each weekend.
The program will begin with students in kindergarten and first grade, along with their siblings – and expand as quickly and broadly as is financially feasible. It will be open to all children, not just those already on the free and reduced plans. All requests will be reviewed by backpack committee. That committee is comprised of food service personnel, a school nurse and local community members. Other agencies, such as Watonwan County Human Services, can also refer families, with all referrals sent through the school district and kept confidential. At Butterfield-Odin Public School more than 50% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunches.
The backpacks will be packed at Madelia Public High School and at Marian Hall in St. James.
The backpack program covers the weekend gap for students who already receive meals at school. As well, a summer meals program is offered from Monday to Friday in order to attempt to eliminate children’s hunger needs.
All donations to the program are tax-deductible. The program has qualified for 501 (c) 3 status under the guidelines of the South Minnesota Initiative Foundation.