Ozarks Food Harvest’s Weekend Backpack Program provides food insecure children with a bag of nutritious weekend meals to take home every Friday of the school year. Each bag contains six healthy kid-friendly meals, beverages and snacks. For one in five children in southwest Missouri the struggle with food insecurity is a daily reality. Weekends can be especially hard when school breakfasts and lunches are not available. Thankfully Ozarks Food Harvest’s Weekend Backpack Program provides meals -and hope - for families.
- Weekend Backpack Program: nearly 1,600 backpacks are distributed each Friday of the school year in 62 schools (nearly 58,000 bags are distributed annually)
- Program starts this fall
- Average free and reduced lunch rate among schools served: 71% (serving the schools with the highest needs)
- You can sponsor a child for a full school year of weekend meals! $360 or $30 a month will ensure a child doesn’t have to go without.
- During an uncertain time, the Weekend Backpack remains a constant for an at-risk child.