Helping hungry students

Back the Pack program helps feed hundreds of hungry students in York County.

Children who come to school hungry are several steps behind their classmates even before they walk through the door. The ongoing Back the Pack program in three York County school districts is one way to give them a better chance of catching up.

The Back the Pack program was launched last year when teachers began reporting that students were coming to class hungry and, in some cases, malnourished. The Rock Hill school district devised the program, which stuffs backpacks with nutritious food for students to take home Friday afternoon so they will have enough to eat through the weekend.

The program has expanded this year, with the Clover and York school districts partnering with the Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina. Second Harvest is a regional food warehouse that donates to agencies feeding the hungry in 19 South and North Carolina counties. It delivers 100 backpacks of food to schools in each of the two districts every week.

In Rock Hill, each elementary and middle school identifies students who don't get enough to eat at home to participate in Back the Pack. High school students enrolled in a warehouse distribution course at the district's Applied Technology Center package and ship food to the schools.

The district hopes to be distributing packs to 1,300 students by the end of the school year. District officials estimate that one in 17 local students is undernourished, and with the severe economic slump, the number could grow.

Hungry children are a special problem for the schools. Students who come to school on empty stomachs often are lethargic and find it hard to focus. They also are likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, and performance suffers as a result.

Teachers have seen students take food from other students' lunches, ask cafeteria workers for handouts and horde food to take home with them on the weekend. Some students arriving on late buses cry when they think they have missed breakfast.

The Back the Pack program allows children to discreetly receive a package of food, which includes juice, granola bars, crackers, pudding, cereal, chips and fruit cups for the weekend. But the organizers rely on donations from the community to continue this worthy effort.

People can donate nonperishable, nutritious food to the program. But the best way to help is to give a monetary donation, which is the most efficient and economical way to put food in students' packs.

People can sponsor a hungry student for $10 a month or $120 a year with either checks sent by mail or credit card payments made in person. Better yet, arrange an automatic bank draft to ensure that your donation goes out on time each month.

Make checks payable to the Rock Hill School District Foundation to Post Office Drawer 12286, Rock Hill, S.C. 29731. For Clover and York schools, make donations earmarked for either district payable to Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, P.O. Box 500, Charlotte, N.C., 28206.

For more information, visit the Web sites rhsdfoundation.org for Rock Hill schools and secondharvestcharlotte.org for Clover and York schools.