Friday October 16th was a very exciting and special day for our team. Our Weekend Backpack Program did its first bag distribution after a long hiatus that began when schools closed in last March. We distributed 50 bags to Community Charter School of Cambridge (CCSC) and 40 to Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School also in Cambridge.
It was a small but very welcome spot of normalcy for us in a not-so-normal year. Our Weekend Backpack Program improves access to healthy food for K-8 public school students in Cambridge and Somerville by sending home bags of healthy food every Friday. Pre-pandemic, the food was discreetly packed in the students’ backpacks each Friday afternoon, ensuring that students would be well nourished through the weekend and better prepared to learn the following week.
Operating the program this year is very different from how we do it in non-pandemic years. We’ve found ways to modify the program and make the backpack distribution happen in schools that are able to accommodate it, like CCSC and Banneker. Many of the other schools that we work with in both Cambridge and Somerville are either fully remote or with a mix of limited in-person and remote schooling. The challenges of reaching all students who need the program is significant this year.
“Operating the program close to how we did it pre-pandemic was just not possible without heavy involvement from school liaisons who were already at full capacity dealing with the challenges that the pandemic is putting upon schools,” said Steph, our Program Director. “We huddled with each district’s liaisons as we tried to work through the challenges for packing, food sourcing, distribution, and getting kids signed up for the program. Ultimately, after endless hurdles and changes in direction, our team realized that this year we had to try something totally different. Something simpler that would reduce the time that school staff needed to put in while at the same time still addressing the students’ needs.”
Our team decided, with the support from Somerville Public Schools and Cambridge Public Schools liaison teams, that monthly grocery store gift cards will be the easiest and most effective way to help the students and their families as the pandemic continues. This will allow liaisons to distribute the cards on their own timeframe and also empowers families to purchase their own food. Starting in November, students in the program will receive monthly grocery store gift cards that are roughly equal to the cost of a month’s worth of bag distributions per student. Food For Free will distribute the cards to each school and the schools’ family liaisons and staff will distribute them.
“Cambridge Public School’s family liaisons have always been, and continue to be, champions for this program and for their students and they were overjoyed that we are able to offer their students a version of the Backpack Program in a more ‘virtual’ mode for this year,” said Alanna Mallon, our K-12 Schools Liaison. “This change also reflects a broader movement toward cities addressing hunger by providing direct cash assistance to purchase food, instead of giving people food directly. Doing so allows students and their families to buy food that best meets their cultural, dietary, and health needs.”
We’re so pleased to get this program back up and running at CCSC and Banneker and also that we’re able to work closely with Cambridge and Somerville Public Schools to finalize details on offering this “virtual” gift card version of the program to kids who need it! Nothing is ideal in this pandemic year but we’re hoping that this option will address the needs of families and kids who are part of the growing number of people impacted by growing levels of food insecurity and hunger in Massachusetts.
