A Boost for Our Backpack Program

It has been an incredible year for Rainier Valley Food Bank, filled with fruitful partnerships, new connections, and growing programs. Amongst it all, we recognize that our organization would not be the same without the continuous support of our community. With the turmoil surrounding the school schedules since 2020 we are appreciative of the continued support of our Backpack Program.

Our Backpack program was born out of our long-term partnerships with local schools and feedback from our community. In 2017 we began our Backpack program to extend our distribution practice of nutritious, culturally relevant foods to schools and students to meet their requests. This started through partnering with teachers and principals in three South Seattle schools to provide bags of nutritious food for at-risk students, many of whom are either unhoused or living in temporary housing situations. This food sustains them and their families’ dietary needs over the weekend in the absence of school breakfast and lunch, and we tailor the foods offered according to the needs of each family and school.

Since March of 2020 we had to shift our service delivery model to meet public health demands of the COVID pandemic by engaging volunteer drivers to deliver food to students’ homes versus their schools. In addition to increasing the program’s infrastructure needs, the pandemic also has grown our program from 11 schools to 15. This program has grown nearly 150% since the beginning of the pandemic due to families experiencing increased food insecurity. One in eight Washingtonians receives SNAP benefits (food stamps), half of whom are children. In Seattle alone, 31% of K-12 students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. This number increases closer to 80% in Rainier Valley Food Bank’s primary service area.

Rooted in Southeast Seattle, we recognize that our organization is on Native land, and as such, we continue to find new ways to interact with the tribes in our community and their members. We are grateful for the recent grants from the Tulalip Tribes and Muckleshoot Charity Fund offer a new way for us to partner with the tribes in our region as they lend their financial support to help fund our Backpack Program!