NIBBLES: The Nutrition in Backpacks before Little One’s Exit School

The Food Pantry is proud of its 34+ year history as a food support center that serves over 3,000 people and distributes over 400,000 pounds of food every year.  Unlike other pantries that provide only enough food for a few days, the Food Pantry gives residents in crisis a 30-day supply of healthy food, one-on-one assistance in filling out applications (Food Stamps, Medicaid, etc), as well as providing financial help (rent/utilities), education classes, and information and referrals (legal aid, MHMR).  They also provide vulnerable populations like seniors, individuals with disabilities, and youth with specialized programming. These clients receive personal care items and in non-pandemic times are also offered social activities, and nutrition, and financial education. The wrap-around services provide residents in crisis an opportunity to get back on their feet and not have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from.

According to Feeding America, 1 in 6 children may not know where they will get their next meal. For the nearly 13 million kids in the U.S. facing hunger, getting the energy they need to learn and grow can be a day-in, day-out challenge. Children facing hunger may struggle in school — and beyond. They are more likely to repeat a grade in school, experience developmental impairments in language and motor skills, and have more social and behavioral problems. Many children from low-income households struggle with hunger over the weekend.  The goal of the Backpack Program is to address child hunger by providing low-income, food-insecure children with nutritious and easy-to-prepare food items for the weekend when school feeding programs do not operate and other food resources are often not readily available.

Our NIBBLES: The Nutrition in Backpacks before Little One’s Exit School (NIBBLES) program provides weekend meals and snacks during the school year for 272 children from low-income families at Lost Pines Elementary, Mina, Red Rock Elementary, Emile Elementary, Cedar Creek Elementary, Cedar Creek Intermediate, and Bastrop Intermediate schools. With 1 in 4 Bastrop County children going hungry, we are serving just the tip of the iceberg. We want to serve more of the thousands of hungry children, but we need your help to grow our program. For every $8 donated we can feed a student for a whole weekend!