Island Harvest Food Bank announced that HSBC has once again awarded a $30,000 grant to help fund its Kids Weekend Backpack Feeding Program that provides additional food support to children who rely on their school’s free breakfast and lunch program during the week, but often don’t get enough to eat over the weekend.
HSBC supported the program last year through its 2018 Child and Family Hunger and Volunteer Engagement Program, helping to support approximately 1,800 food-insecure school children during the school year. Also, HSBC corporate volunteers donated their time at Island Harvest Food Bank to help collect, pack, and distribute food to help approximately 300,000 Long Islanders struggling with hunger and food insecurity.
“HSBC has established itself as an important, and caring partner with Island Harvest Food Bank in our fight to end hunger and reduce food waste on Long Island,” said Randi Shubin Dresner, president and CEO, Island Harvest Food Bank. “Thanks to HSBC’s efforts and generosity, countless Long Island children will get enough food to help them make it through the weekend, and for that, we are exceptionally thankful.”
More than 100,000 children on Long Island qualify for free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program and the National School Breakfast Program. For many of these kids, school meals may be the only meals they eat. Since 2006, Island Harvest Food Bank’s Kids Weekend Backpack Feeding Program has been supplementing meals on the weekends for children who depend on school breakfasts and lunches, during the week.
Every Friday during the school year, Island Harvest Food Bank supplies children who are food-insecure with packs of nutritious, shelf-stable food; each pack contains enough for two lunches, two breakfasts, two snacks, and two servings of milk. During the 2017/18 school year, the Kids Weekend Backpack Feeding Program distributed more than 64,000 food packs to 1,800 kids, representing approximately 256,000 healthy meals to children in 29 schools in 12 school districts Nassau and Suffolk counties.
