The Roane Alliance to Help Feed Hungry School Children This Christmas
Monday November 09, 2009
Kingston, TN - The Roane Alliance Monday announced a food drive to help feed hungry school children in Roane County over this holiday season.
"Hunger and holidays should not go together," said Leslie Henderson, President/CEO of The Roane Alliance said Monday in launching the program.
The food drive will supplement an existing program - commonly called the School BackPack Program -- administered by the Roane County Schools with food supplied from Second Harvest. The program normally provides food - packed in individual servings - in backpacks issued to each at-risk child every Friday to ensure they have enough food to last through the weekend.
"When we found out that the children might only be receiving their normal weekend allotment of food when they left for their two-week Christmas break, all of us here at the Alliance looked at each other and said, ‘We can't let that happen!," Henderson said.
The BackPack program typically delivers backpacks to 150 students every week. In addition to providing nutritious food to school children in need, sometimes the BackPack Program provides extra food for younger siblings at home, when the children are out of school and have limited access to free or reduced-priced meals. Fifty-three percent of the students in Roane County Schools this school year rely on resources such as free or reduced-priced school lunch. Backpacks are discreetly distributed to children on the last day before the weekend or school breaks.
The Alliance food drive will run for three weeks, beginning November 23, Monday of Thanksgiving week, and run through Friday, December 11. Donations need to be child-friendly, nonperishable, easily consumed and vitamin fortified and limited to the following items:
- Granola bars
- Instant macaroni
- Cereal bars
- Snack crackers
- Peanuts
- Pudding snack packs
- Applesauce snack packs
- Fruit cups
- Any easy-to-open individual-sized canned good
Financial donations will also be accepted during the drive and Alliance staff will use the funds to purchase more appropriate food items. For donations to be tax deductible, checks need to be made to "Community Foundation of Roane County, Inc.", The Alliance's 501c3 organization. All donations can be delivered to the Roane Alliance office at 1209 N. Kentucky Street in Kingston. The food drive to help The BackPack program is part of the Alliance's Education Initiative -- Education Matters!
The Roane Alliance is Roane County's economic development organization and consists of both public and private organizations, including the Roane County Chamber of Commerce, the Roane County Industrial Development Board and the Roane County Visitors Bureau. For more information about The Alliance's Education Initiative -- Education Matters! -- contact Education and Workforce Development Specialist Allen Lutz at (865) 865-376-5572 or alutz@RoaneAlliance.org.
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