Weekend SnackPack
Childhood hunger is a silent epidemic that affects nearly 1 in 6 children. For the poorest school-age children, Friday night begins the Weekend Meal Gap, two days when the school lunch programs are not available and the children have little or nothing to eat. These children come back to school on Mondays, famished and weak, thinking only of the free meal that will come at breakfast and/or lunchtime.
Through the Weekend SnackPack Program, teachers and counselors at elementary schools in Anderson County, Districts 1-5, identify children who are at the greatest risk of falling into the Weekend Meal Gap. Free and reduced breakfasts and lunches are only available during the week, so the program provides needy children with meals to take home on Fridays. Each enrolled child receives a bag of child-friendly, ready-to-eat foods on Friday to take home for the weekend, when school meals are not available. Children return to school on Monday, well-fed and ready to learn. The Weekend SnackPack Program feeds 750 children every weekend throughout the school year.
Partners
- Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina
- Local churches and the faith community
- Anderson County schools
- Local businesses
- Local civic clubs
Want to volunteer to pack or deliver Weekend SnackPacks? Reach out to Lee Hancock (lee@uwandsc.org)!
SnackPack Pantries
United Way provides middle and high schools with shelf stable food items for students to come "shop" for food to take home. These students have been identified as at-risk for childhood hunger and may have younger siblings who receive Weekend SnackPacks.
Summer Food 4 Kids (an AIM initiative)
We know that hunger doesn’t end with the school year. We partner with AIM’s Summer Food 4 Kids program to provide 5,000 SnackPacks to neighborhoods in our community over the summer.
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