Highland Elementary School in Crookston will once again be putting on their annual Backpack Food Program for their students. The program is designed to help kids who may have insecurities or a lack of food at home and provide them with nutritious meals on weekends.
The program has been running for the last 10 years, and Tara Rodriguez working in school-based mental health with Highland talked more about how the program is run. “We partner with North Country Food Bank out of East Grand Forks, and they deliver food to the school twice a month,” said Rodriguez. “Every other Friday, we make sure to send that home with kids that have signed up. We usually have 100 kids that sign up for the program. that gives you an idea of the need for the program as that’s a fifth of our school population.”
The cost of the program is free and available for all parents and families. Rodriguez explained more about the reason for the program. “We just found over the years that there were certain times that there were food insecurities at home for students,” said Rodriguez. “Whether it wasn’t having enough food or not having snacks, this program sends the food home for kids, so they’re taken care of.”
The food is sent home with the student discretely, as volunteers place the food in kids’ backpacks during classes. The list of students signed up for the program is confidential, so no one knows who’s on the list except the volunteers helping run the program.
Some of the food included in the program consists of canned goods, oatmeal packets, granola bars, and fruit rollups. The program is designed to get a nutritious meal, and the meals follow nutrition guidelines.
Rodriguez talked more about why the program is free and how they’ve never needed to charge parents who want to sign their kids up. “Thankfully, through the North Country Food Bank and donations they receive along with generous people in the community, we have never had an issue of running out of funds,” said Rodriguez. “We’ve never run into a situation where we had to say we couldn’t add someone to the list because of funding.”
A start date for the program this school year has not been determined yet, but you can still sign up for the program or learn more about it by calling Highland at 218-281-5600. Families can also sign up for the program at any time during the school year.
