Fire Dpt Child Hunger Prevention

Every year Portsmouth Public Schools participate with the local Food Bank to provide children with much needed meals on a weekly basis. These meals are provided through the BackPack program that feeds more than 500 children in the City of Portsmouth, VA. Unfortunately, many of these children go without this food when school is on break (including summer break) because the children are unable to come to school on a weekly basis to pick up the backpacks of food. 

 Child Hunger Intervention with Public Service (CHIPS) Program will assist in bringing children much needed food during school breaks. This is a new program, and there are currently no programs that bridge this gap in adequate nutrition for these children in need. This summer the CHIPS Program will be tested using Brighton Elementary School as a pilot program. This school has more than 150 students who participate in the BackPack program. These children will go without proper nutrition this summer as summer programs have been cancelled. 

Brighton students will be provided with a schedule for the summer that will show dates and times that they can visit local community centers to receive their food. The Fire department will bring a fire apparatus (Engine or Ladder) that will take food from the food bank, place in bags, and distribute to children in need. We hope to also work with police and sheriffs deputies. I have attached a link with more information on the BackPack program, these backpacks cost approximately $4.00 each, and we will have 150 children participating in the program, perhaps more as it takes off. We are trying to raise additional funding for the food bank to cover the additional cost of feeding these children over the summer. We hope to raise these funds by this May.

Thank you for taking the time to read over this. We are very grateful for any and all of your donations! Please visit us at http://www.chipsfund.org for more information and other donation information.