As the school year comes to a close, United Food Bank is asking kids to donate their gently used backpacks to the United Food Bank to help kids in need.
From now until the end of June, each child donating backpacks will receive a free ice cream and a special certificate recognizing the good deed. The backpack drop-off location is at United Food Bank, located at 245 South Nina Drive, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Backpack Program gets nutritious food to kids at risk of going hungry over the weekend by sending them home from school each Friday with a backpack full of food. This program is extremely important for children who, during the week, qualify for free or reduced cost lunch at school, but have little to no access to food over the weekend.
United Food Bank provides more than 500 backpacks every single week during the school year. As one could imagine, some of them rip or get lost, and need to be replaced.
“It may be hard to imagine this, but one in four children in Arizona does not know where the next meal is coming from,” said United Food Bank’s Chief Development Officer Lisa Goin. “We hear from parents, who thank us for this food, saying that without this program, their child would literally just be eating the free lunch provided at school. It’s an unfortunate reality for so many people that there isn’t a single morsel of food in the house.”
For more information about donating a backpack or joining the Kids Lunch Bunch, visit www.unitedfoodbank.org, or call (480) 926-4897, extension 207.
About United Food Bank
United Food Bank is a private nonprofit organization, which provides hunger relief/food assistance by collecting, acquiring, storing and distributing food and related commodities through a network of partner social services agencies in the East Valley and Eastern Arizona. United Food Bank receives the prestigious four-star rating from Charity Navigator, an independent charity evaluator, for its efficiency.
For more information, visit www.unitedfoodbank.org.