All Baltimore City schoolchildren are provided breakfast and lunch at school each day. However, many of the students suffer from food insecurity, lacking sufficient funds to provide them with food when school is not in session.

We provide child-friendly, nutritious food directly to children in need over the weekends.

We believe that a child does not live in isolation; therefore, each backpack contains enough food to feed three to four people for the weekend.

All food is packaged in four set menus, including milk, proteins, vegetables, cereal and fruit. The amount of food in the bags increases weekly throughout the month to compensate for the fact that a family’s funds decrease as the month progresses.

Fresh fruit is included in every backpack of food.

Additional food is added when there is a three- or four-day weekend. These extended weekends can mean that the students would have little or no access to food for more than 100 hours.

Children and youth are homeless when they lack a fixed, regular and adequate night-time place of residence, including:

• Sharing housing of other persons due to the loss of housing, economic hardship or being “doubled up”
• Living in a supervised publicly or privately operated emergency or transitional shelter
• Living in motels, hotels, trailer parks or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations
• Living in vehicles, on the street, in abandoned buildings or in any private or public space not designated as regular sleeping accommodations
• Awaiting foster care placement
• Unaccompanied youth