The emergency needs for additional food and volunteers on such short notice, revealed a gap in which our current four major food initiatives were not addressing.
It’s crises like last April’s tornado that led us to realize the importance of having an extra reserve of food readily available to school staff and partner agencies for when there is an influx in need, to provide food to children during their most vulnerable times.* More common than tornadoes, we are commonly asked for help in events such as house fires, evictions, parental deaths and more.
For this reason, we are proud to announce the launch of our new emergency pantry. The emergency pantry, located in our warehouse, had its soft opening in August, and we look forward to expanding its services to more and more schools and partner agencies. Distributions from this new pantry will be made to the social workers and family advocates working with the families and children.
We are commonly asked for help in events such as house fires, evictions, parental deaths and more. -Parker White
*When the unavoidable, natural disaster, destroyed three of Guilford County’s Elementary Schools (Hampton, Erwin and Peeler Elementary) BackPack Beginnings was asked to supply food to an additional 600 children. With the help from our volunteers, we successfully provided 1,000 extra bags of food, in the first two weeks after the tornado; but these efforts only accounted for a small portion of the children who needed assistance.
Written by Virginia Brooks on August 27, 2018
If you would like to become a BackPack Beginnings volunteer, please visit our volunteer page. Want to host a food drive or make a donation? Your donations will allow us to serve more children in need. Thank you!
