It's all fallen into place better then I could have expected. The timing was great. We have a new daycare center here in Norfolk, Gracie spends a day a week there, and she LOVES it. I was worried about how she'd handle it, but she runs in to her classroom and turns around and waves goodbye, and she's always happy when I pick her up. While she is there and Maggie is at school, I work in my official Blessings in a Backpack office at Norfolk Iron :) I've never been a huge Wal-mart fan, but the people there have been awesome, when I show up to order 800 pop-tarts, 50 cases of juice, hundreds of cans of soup, etc. etc. they are all smiles and lots of help. So far the whole process has been a huge blessing to me.
This weekend the Norfolk Daily News printed a nice article about our efforts....
http://www.norfolkdailynews.com/news/local/backpack-program-a-blessing-to-hungry-students/article_fd3cbc42-1abe-11e2-a625-0019bb30f31a.html
Here is the text of the article, incase they dissconect the link...
Backpack program a blessing to hungry students
By ANDREA LARSON alarson@norfolkdailynews.com |Posted: Saturday, October 20, 2012 9:03 am
Food for thought: What will you eat this weekend?
Will you go to a Nebraska Huskers tailgating party on Saturday? Maybe have a pizza delivered or go out to eat? What about a big Sunday dinner with all of the trimmings?
Unfortunately, not everyone is nearly so lucky to have those kind of choices.
Some children in Norfolk get most or virtually all of their meals through the free and reduced lunch program available through schools — which means they get little to no food on the weekends.
But now, some of these children don’t find themselves hungry as often, thanks to the efforts of Julie Robinson and some fellow Norfolkans.
Robinson, a part-time photographer and community volunteer, said she read about a program called “Blessings in a Backpack” that helps to supplement the diets of at-risk children in a school system. After researching the organization and deciding to start her own program through it, Robinson approached the Norfolk Public Schools’ Title I elementary schools to find out if there was a need here to feed hungry students.
Robinson said she knew an Omaha food bank provides some food for students who don’t get enough to eat on the weekends, so she wasn’t expecting the response she received.
“I assumed the food bank was meeting the need for the most part, so I was really surprised to find out that there were a lot of students on the schools’ list (of hungry children) who weren’t being helped,” Robinson said. “All seven of our elementary schools were supposed to get a few bags (of food) a week this year, but last time I checked — a couple weeks ago — the food bank didn't have enough food to start the program, so Grant was the only building getting food bank food.”
And even at Grant there are still hungry children since the food bank program only provides food every other week. Robinson said school counselors told her it wasn’t uncommon to have children coming in during the off weeks, asking if they’d get food and crying when they were told there wouldn’t be a delivery that week.
In some cases, teachers ended up buying food for hungry children at their own expense, Robinson said.
“So I talked to the four Title I schools — Washington, Westside, Grant and Jefferson — and I was amazed at what the need was. There were literally hundreds of students who they listed,” Robinson said.
She secured $15,000 in funding through Norfolk Iron & Metal, where her husband, Arnie, is the executive vice president, and she also is working with Blessings in a Backpack to handle the tax portion of her program.
Currently, Robinson said, 200 students — 50 at each of the four Title I schools — are taking home grocery bags of food each Friday.
“They get two juices, two breakfast items, two meal items, two snacks, and it’s all kid-friendly. And once a month we’ll send home a whole box of cereal. . . And when we deliver on Thursday, then it’s up to the teachers to slip the bags in the students’ backpacks while they’re out of the classroom sometime on Friday, so it’s anonymous, and the student just goes home and opens their bag, and they have their food,” Robinson said.
Additionally, if a student is part of the backpack program and they have a sibling in the school, the sibling gets a bag as well. This way, a child doesn’t take home food while their brother or sister gets nothing.
Robinson is using an office at Norfolk Iron & Metal to store bulk purchases of food as well as her receipts and bookkeeping. Additionally, employees there have been more than helpful, she said.
“It kind of became a company-wide project. We started hauling in food, and people wanted to know what I was doing, and then they wanted to help. I’d set up assembly lines in the break room to fill bags, and they would be coming up constantly to ask if they could help, what could they do,” Robinson said.
All of the hard work has paid off for some hungry students. Robinson said she has gotten positive feedback from teachers, counselors and PTAs at the four schools her program is serving. She’s looking into providing the backpack program to students at Woodland Park, as they’re set to become a Title I school next year, and, hopefully, the middle school due to the high need, Robinson said.
“The No. 1 reason I started this program is that kids need to eat. And I have two little girls at home, and they help me do all of this because they need to know how blessed they are,” Robinson said.
“I want people to know there is a need. I was totally awestruck by the need. I think people just need to be aware that there are hungry children in our community. If someone wants to volunteer to help pack bags, this is a great project for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, church groups,” Robinson said.
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