Pair of Idaho Foodbank programs keep children from going hungry
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POCATELLO — There are approximately 20,000 children in East Idaho who don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
That’s according to Rebecca Ristrem, Eastern Idaho branch manager for the Idaho Foodbank.
“We know that much is going to need to be done,” she said. “We can’t solve the minimum wage. We can’t solve why people need help. But what we can do is get them from point A to point B until somebody does C, and eventually they crawl themselves out of whatever has happened to them, whether it’s loss of a job, a child got sick, low income. … I can’t tell you a cause, but I can tell you we’re here to help them step up and get through that hard time.”
Two of the Idaho Foodbank’s programs specifically target hungry kids: Backpack and School Pantry.
The Backpack Program started when it was being noticed that several students were going home to no food during the weekend. The only food they were getting was free-and-reduced breakfast and lunch at school.
“What would happen is they’d come back to school and sometimes it would be evident in behavioral problems,” Ristrem said. “They were hungry. It’s not conducive for learning. When you’re hungry, you can’t concentrate, you get angry, you get frustrated. … So many things happen when you don’t have food.”
What the Backpack Program did was sent hungry kids home with backpacks filled with nutritious food. Every Friday, each participating child would get a backpack with enough food for two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners and two snacks.
But come Monday, many of the children would come back to school still hungry. The Idaho Foodbank set out to figure out why.
“We were doing surveys,” Ristrem said, “and in those surveys, some of the things that were coming back were the kids loved the food but it wasn’t enough. … They were still hungry because they’re sharing. … If we give a backpack to a kindergartner and he goes home, he’s going to share it.
“He’s not going to make his little brother or sister go without. … We wanted to feed the family — not just the child — because we didn’t feel like we were making enough of a difference.”
The Idaho Foodbank determined that more than 80 percent of students participating in the Backpack Program were sharing with family members. Instead of stuffing backpacks with more food, the food bank decided to start another program. That’s when the Food Pantry made its debut.
There’s a pantry set up inside Pocatello High School where students and families from the area can take home food boxes filled with food and recipes. Janie Carlson, community resource worker at Pocatello High School, says she’s seen the benefits the program has on families. The number the pantry services, however, is growing.
“Seems like every year we get more and more students that are in need of this service, and that’s sad,” Carlson said. “But that just kind of seems like how it’s working.”
According to the Idaho Foodbank’s website, the Backpack Program distributed more than 63,000 backpacks to 1,883 children across 171 schools during the 2015-16 school year. According to surveys, 78 percent of children said the backpacks made them “very happy,” and 97 percent of parents said the program made a positive difference on the well-being of their child.
In that same time frame, the School Pantry program has served 12,779 individuals, 56 percent of which are children. That’s more than 289,000 pounds of food. In additional surveys, 100 percent of parents said the program positively impacted the well-being of their family.
“The two programs both serve a huge need and both are necessary,” Ristrem said. “The whole mission of the Idaho Foodbank is to feed hungry tummies. We want to make sure that people have a resource available to them so that their families don’t go hungry.”
Food from the Idaho Foodbank is received via donations. From the farming community to individual donors to companies such as Lamb Weston, Chobani and ConAgra, the Idaho Foodbank relies on generosity to help families get by.
And with Thanksgiving right around the corner, the Idaho Foodbank will continue to supply families in need. On Saturday at the Bannock County Fairgrounds, the food bank is giving away Thanksgiving boxes. The distribution begins at 1 p.m. for those with vouchers and at 3 p.m. for everybody else. Ristrem says she has enough food for about 1,200 families.
“I’m blessed to be able to come do what I do everyday,” she said. “I’m able to do that because of the people we have supporting us.”
This article was originally published in the Idaho State Journal. It is used here with permission.