About Weekend Survival Kits

Would you believe that 1 out of 5 school children go home from school on Friday worried about what they will have for food on the weekend? This food insecurity can happen for any number of reasons – temporary family financial problems to pervasive poverty. It can have a damaging effect, especially on elementary school-aged kids.

Coming home to empty cupboards/refrigerator on the weekend means discomfort over the weekend AND a serious obstacle to learning on Monday.  Thankfully, for some kids the federally funded National School Lunch program and/or the School Breakfast program can help to get these kids back on track – IF they have applied for participation in the program. 

Even if the national free or reduced-priced breakfast or lunch program can be accessed, most kids can’t settle in to learning until much later in the day on Monday. This amounts to having 39 SICK Days over the course of the school year. Imagine the kind of delays and gaps in learning that occur with that many sick days!

The Weekend Survival Kits program is dedicated to fill the weekend food gap by mobilizing an army of volunteers to pack and deliver food kits for delivery to participating schools every other week.  By discreetly tucking food kits in the backpacks of the participating kids every other Friday we are confident that the kids will come to school on Monday morning ready to learn.  In the kits there are enough food basics to make 6 dinners, 4 lunches, 4 breakfasts, and 2 to 4 snacks, enough for 2 weekends.