Childhood Hunger

Weekend SnackPack

A study in the jour­nal Pedi­atrics report­ed that, rel­a­tive to their food-secure peers, chil­dren in food-inse­cure homes are more like­ly to have

- poor over­all health; 
- reduced immune sys­tem functioning;
- more com­mu­ni­ca­ble diseases 
- poor body weight outcomes;
- asth­ma;
- high­er rates of emer­gency room vis­its and health care use; and
- inter­nal­iz­ing behav­ior prob­lems, such as anx­i­ety and depression.

Food inse­cu­ri­ty derails a stu­den­t’s con­cen­tra­tion, mem­o­ry, mood and motor skills — all of which chil­dren need to suc­ceed in school, per the No Kid Hun­gry cam­paign. On aver­age, stu­dents who eat school break­fast score 17.5% high­er on stan­dard­ized math tests and attend 1.5 more days of school each year rel­a­tive to stu­dents who start the day hun­gry.

Weekend SnackPack & SnackPack Pantry

Although Federal Nutrition programs provide meals for students during the school week, weekends can be especially challenging. Weekend SnackPack and SnackPack Pantry were created to provide weekend food supplements to students who are identified by their teachers, creating food security for them over the weekend. With the support of partners, donors, and volunteers, United Way of Anderson County works hard to fill the weekend meal gap for these kids, solving their weekend hunger issue so they can return to school each Monday ready to learn.

Every week at the Second Harvest Food Bank warehouse, volunteers pack kid-friendly, ready-to-eat food items in bags. Boxes of SnackPacks are delivered to Anderson County elementary schools for the entirety of the school year. School staff then place the SnackPacks in children’s backpacks to be discreetly sent home each Friday. We currently serve 800 children in Anderson County every weekend.

The SnackPack Pantry program aimed at addressing hunger in our Anderson County middle schools. Each participating school gets a food pantry stocked with brand-name items that kids love. When a teacher sees a child is in need of something extra, they can offer a full bag of items from the pantry.

Buy-a-Box today to support our 2025 fundraiser and feed children in Anderson County!

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)!

Summer Food 4 Kids (an AIM initiative)

We know that hunger doesn’t end with the school year. We partnered 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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