While the holidays mean indulgent meals for many families, more than 15 million children in the U.S. are food insecure – 120,000 in Bexar County. That’s according to feedingamerica.org . One organization helping to feed some San Antonio kids on the weekends needed a little help getting ready for Winter break.
Before Thanksgiving break, a group of Girl Scouts paid a visit to Leslie Kingman.
“So, Saturday morning at your house, what do you have breakfast," asks Kingman. The girls reply with shouts of pancakes, toast, eggs, and bacon. They say they don't make those meals themselves, that their parents do.
These are not food insecure children, one mom jokes. These Girl Scouts from troops in Alamo Heights may not have trouble finding food over the weekend, but that doesn’t mean some of their classmates don’t.
They’re here helping the organization Snack Pak 4 Kids. Kingman is the volunteer Executive Director of the program that feeds about 900 kids per week in San Antonio.
The idea is to get kids through the 66 hours from Friday lunch to Monday breakfast at school, and be self sufficient feeding themselves. In its fourth year here, Snack Pak is now in 13 schools.
"We train the teachers or give them some information on what chronic hunger looks like," says Kingman, "and the markers to look for in kids.”
That can be anything from inability to concentrate, to cracked lips. Tons of research shows nutrition is key for children’s physical and emotional development.
Seven-year-old Girl Scout Fallon Edwards is at the front of the assembly line packaging bags of snacks, and says she was moved by what she learned from Kingman’s presentation.
“I was sad they didn’t have the healthy meal we have everyday,” says Edwards.
Kingman says Snack Pak purchases brand new, brand-name food. "We want our kids to have the best," she says. "We don’t want to give them seconds. We don’t want to give them leftovers. We want these kids to know how important they are.”
So today they packed 7 weeks worth of Nature Valley Granola Bars and Peter Pan Peanut Butter – things many other kids get at home.
Earlier this month enough snack packs were delivered to participating schools to send home multiple bags to get through the longer Thanksgiving and winter breaks.