BALTIMORE – A Baltimore nonprofit is packing food and school supplies for needy children for the upcoming new school year.
According to state data, one in three Maryland residents is food insecure. To address this problem, Weekend Backpacks, a Baltimore-based nonprofit, is preparing to distribute approximately 3,000 backpacks to 50 schools in the greater Baltimore area. Each backpack will be filled with essential school supplies for young children and teens.
Every week, the nonprofit packs food parcels for 250 children throughout the year. These children rely on free or reduced-price meals at school and often do not have access to nutritious meals outside of class. The program, which has been active for nearly 10 years, is experiencing increased demand due to current economic challenges.
“In the last two or three years since COVID, the need has definitely increased,” said Christy Keppel, executive director of Weekend Backpacks. “During COVID and immediately afterward, there was a lot of support for families, and a lot of that has gone away, including SNAP benefits. Also, inflation – food, gas and other burdens on families – makes it harder to access food.”
Keppel noted that due to increasing demand, the nonprofit now packages about 30,000 kilograms of food each month to support the local community.
Weekend Backpacks also plans to distribute backpacks filled with school supplies to children when they start school next week.
“The teachers are very grateful and ask us in January, ‘Hey, do you have any left?'” Keppel said. “Often the kids come back from winter break and don’t have these things, so we hold some back to support them in the middle of the year.”
The goal of this initiative is to provide children with a good preparation for academic success at the beginning of the school year while reducing the financial burden on their families.
