Knoch using food program to fight childhood hunger
JEFFERSON TWP — About 45 students of Knoch Primary and Knoch Intermediate Elementary schools leave their classrooms each Friday with enough meals to feed them throughout the weekend.
Staff members took a cue From Butler Area School District’s Kids’ Weekend Backpack Program and now run a similar program for young students, the K-5 Weekend Food Program, to make sure children have enough to eat while away from their schools.
Jennifer French coordinates the program for the intermediate elementary and Jade Thrower coordinates at Knoch Primary School. The two shop for food, pack it into bags and distribute them to students via their classrooms on Fridays, making it a pretty time-consuming undertaking for each of them.
Despite the relatively small number of students who receive food for the weekend through the program, French said some of them may not eat as much food as is necessary over the weekend without the program.
“Some of the kids, we don't know the situations they are going home to,” said French, a Title 1 teacher at Knoch Intermediate Elementary School. “Some of them don't have running water and things like that, or they are sharing electricity with their neighbor, so we just try to make it easy.”
The program has always run on community donations and support and French said area churches and groups regularly contribute money and food to the program. She added the program mainly serves students who are on the district’s free and reduced lunch program.
According to Thrower, a counselor at Knoch Primary School, she and French also try to keep enough food stocked in each of their schools just in case additional students need help throughout the school year.
“We've had fires and people who lose a parent and they are on a single-parent income,” Thrower said. “It's definitely circumstance by circumstance, but we try to be there for the families whenever they need support.”
Knoch has had the weekend food program for about 10 years, Thrower said. A former teacher started the program after hearing about Butler Area School District’s weekend food program and using it as inspiration.
The program works pretty much the same way that Butler’s Golden Tornado Scholastic Foundation’s does. Thrower and French pack meals into bags to send home with students on Fridays. The food bags are discretely given to the children before they leave for the weekend, but French said some of the students who get the bags don’t even recognize they are unique in getting this aid.
“We give them to the teachers and then they discretely give them to their students, they put them in their backpack,” French said. “But some kids are so excited to get that food bag that they're running out to the bus with them at the end of the day.”
The food packed into the bags is mostly nonperishable items. Things like macaroni and cheese, soup, granola bars, chips, apple sauce and other packaged goods — most of which are easy enough for a child to open and even heat up on their own using a microwave.
Inside each bag is enough food for meals for the weekend.
“Basically to cover Saturday and Sunday,” according to French.
“They get two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners, a drink, a fruit and two snacks,” French said. “And then if it's a longer break, if it's over Christmas or something, we try to throw in extra stuff as well.”
In addition to buying the food on their own — French frequents Sam’s Club on the weekends to stock up — the program gets donations from area churches, including Saxonburg Memorial Presbyterian Church, which donates food regularly. French said the church helps provide food to the program during the regular school year and also provides holiday meals for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.
Coherent also donated food to the program Oct. 9. French said the company is another frequent donor to the program.
While a majority of the program is handled by Thrower and French, Thrower said her school’s social worker helps pack and distribute the food and added she has gotten more help packing recently.
“Our recess and lunch aides have a little bit of flex time here and there, so when they do they'll come up and pack them,” French said. “I'll have everything sitting out and then they just go like assembly line, put everything in the bag for me. So that's a big help too because it is time consuming to be able to do that and find time.”
Thrower said the number of students helped by the program has hovered around 40 to 50 students per year. The supply of donations has kept up with the need, but French said economic changes could lead to more students needing help.
“The rising cost of food has not been easy,” French said. “But between the partnership with the church and Coherent in town just did a big donation. St. Luke's Church just gave us a big monetary donation at the beginning of the year, so all of that really helps.
“Without their help we wouldn't be able to run the program.”
Thrower said the program’s list is not locked in for any amount of time. Students may land in a place where they need food assistance at a random point throughout the year and some may see their situation improve to the point where they don’t need as much aid.
Donations to the program are always appreciated and Thrower said they have remained consistent for the past few years.
“If we were at 50 kids a building, I think I'd definitely be asking for help, but right now, we're sustaining which is good,” Thrower said.
French added monetary donations are useful as well, because she and Thrower can use the money to buy more specific food items to put in the bags. However, the churches that donate to the program do provide seasonal foods.
While the people who run Knoch’s weekend food program also try to get rid of the stigma surrounding getting food assistance, Thrower said the students don’t even recognize that there is a stigma.
“It speaks to our kids, too,” Thrower said. “I have never ever gotten a report of somebody making fun of a student for getting a food bag.”
More information on Knoch’s K-5 Weekend Food Program can be found on the intermediate elementary school’s website, intermediate.knochsd.org.
