[/caption]Veronica Sturman - Children, who depend on public school meals to fill their stomachs, may feel some hunger pains on the weekends. But there are groups that fill the gap and help those in need of help, and here's how one town makes a difference.
More than 47,214 children get free or reduced meals at schools throughout Central Louisiana. Now, more than 1,128 of these children also receive a backpack full of food to carry home over the weekend. BackPack Program has helped children for two years and is ran by the Food Bank of Central Louisiana.
The Cane River Green Market is hosting a food drive to support the BackPack Program. Two hundred students from L.P. Vaughn and Parks Elementary School receive backpacks of food to eat at home over the weekends and on school holidays. Donated food or backpacks can be dropped off at the Cane River Green Market on Saturday mornings. Food should be healthy and easy enough for a child to prepare. Please do not leave food that requires stove top cooking. Suggested food items include single serving portions of fruits and vegetables, cereal bars, peanut butter, and microwavable ramen noodles or canned ravioli.
Courtney Hornsby works for the City of Natchitoches and stated, “We are very excited to be participating in the BackPack Program for the second year in a row, and hope to only expand the number of Natchitoches Parish schools involved. Ensuring our children have access to nutritious food outside of the school setting is a priority for the City and ties in nicely with the Cane River Green Market’s mission of ensuring access to healthy, locally grown foods for all segments of our community.”
The Cane River Green Market is a fun place to hang around on Saturday mornings. So grab some nonperishable food and come on down to the riverfront. Listen to some live music, buy yourselves some fresh, farm grown tomatoes, and donate something nutritious to the BackPack program.
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Veronica Sturman is nine years old and a talented, prolific writer. She already has several published books and has been a correspondent with this newspaper and others. In Natchitoches Parish she is known as somewhat of a child prodigy. Here again is one of her insightful articles about the local scene in her home town of Natchitoches. This story shows how issues of hunger are dealt with in small town America and other places where people join to care for those in need of special help.