In School District 51, there are 9,750 children eligible for free or reduced school lunches. That is 41 percent of all children in the district. These children will most likely go without food every weekend. Kid’s Aid, a local non-profit, tries to help those children every weekend with their Feeding Friends Backpack program. The volunteers of Kid’s Aid send over 1,800 backpacks home with kids every weekend to help them with food.

The partners at Kid’s Aid choose backpacks because it is a discrete way to transport food from school. They drop off backpacks every Friday at various schools throughout District 51. Each child is given a backpack to take home with them over the weekend and they are returned by Tuesday morning. The backpacks typically contain a fruit cup, a packet of instant oatmeal, a pudding cup, a can of ravioli, a can of chili with beans, cereal, a granola bar, a package of Mac n’ Cheese, ramen noodles and a package of single-serve cookies or crackers. To avoid having the program taken advantage of, only children are allowed to pick up the backpacks. Participating schools try to distribute the backpacks based upon need and not financial requirements. Homeless children are provided with backpacks first, then the remaining backpacks are distributed fairly to children who have filled out a form requesting a one.

Kid’s Aid was founded on the idea that kids should only have to worry about being kids, not about where they are going to sleep that night or if they are going to get a meal prior to their next school lunch. Kid’s Aid “Helps Kids be Kids” and has for almost four years now with numbers that are rapidly growing. In their first year of opperation, 2008-2009, the Kid’s Aid organization successfully distributed an average of 700 backpacks a week through out the Grand Valley. The following year that number grew to 1,260 backpacks a week. Today the number of backpacks sent home with kids is 1,800. If growth rates stay the same, Kid’s aid will be able to provide weekend backpacks to all the children in need by Fall 2018.

If you are interested in helping Kid’s Aid continue the Feeding Friends backpack program you can help by donating food such as canned soups, various pastas, juice boxes or other snack packs. For a complete list as well as steps to follow visit kidsaidcolorado.org/donate. You can also help by donating money at the same website. For $4 they can provide a weekends worth of food to a child, or $128 will help feed one child for a full school year. Kid’s Aid is a 100 percent not for profit organization all members are volunteers and donations go straight to helping children of the community eat every weekend.

asuttond@mavs.coloradomesa.edu