Blessings in a Backpack Begins Another School Year!

Many children returning to school will benefit from the National School Lunch Program on weekdays. But when the weekend comes around, these same children face food insecurity, not knowing where their next meal will come from until the following Monday. Our Blessings in a Backpack program is one way to mitigate this problem by providing

We plan to continue to serve St Thomas of Canterbury School for the upcoming school year. In addition, we are exploring expansion to another school. To meet this growing demand, we need help from our volunteer community. Some of the needs include:

Program Management Coordinators
This group will provide an overall leadership role in general program oversight.
Will develop a knowledge of the general operations of the program and assist with coordination and overall planning.

Delivery Drivers
The program can not succeed without volunteers to deliver the packs to the school. We need team of volunteers so that this is not a burden to any one individual. St Thomas of Canterbury will be the delivery location, easily accessed from N Lake Shore Drive. We can deliver either Thursday or Friday during school hours.

Packing Weekly Bags
This involves packing the food sacks with the inventory of items that have been selected for the week. Our food items are typically delivered to the Cathedral mid-week, so we typically pack on Thursday mornings in the Rectory. It usually takes about 90 minutes with a team packing 200 bags.

Fundraising
We will be developing a new strategy this year to raise funds for our program. We welcome volunteers to brainstorm ideas and build plans for fundraising.

Backpack Additions

We welcome new ideas for seasonal items or creative arts to add surprise elements to the children’s bags.

There are many ways to get involved in this worthy program. Perhaps come to one of our weekly packing sessions to meet other members of the ministry team. Just click here and our program coordinator will be in touch with you.