Please help us raise funds to get our Backpack program off the ground! The school backpack program partners with the Blue Ridge Area Foodbank and Hope Distributed to send nutritious food home with our students every weekend. Smithland Elementary has the highest enrollment in Harrisonburg and 57.5% of the students come from economically disadvantaged homes. Many of our students struggle with food insecurity. Our students are all fed breakfast and lunch during the school week but many go home to bare cupboards on the weekends. We can change that.

At the end of the 20-21 school year, my mother, husband and a handful of volunteers were packing over 100 bags of food for the students in our school. In normal times this would have cost us around $350 a week. But with an influx of COVID related funding we were able to get the food at NO COST. This year, we're forced to scale back as we now have to pay for the food. While we can get it at a steeply discounted rate, it's still expensive and we're starting from a $0 budget. Please help us reach our goal!

Want to join me in making a difference? You can sponsor a student for a whole year of weekend food for just $250. Honestly, any sized donation will help make an impact and directly put food on the plates of our local children!

I'd also like to give a HUGE SHOUTOUT to RISE United Methodist Faith Community for serving as our Fiscal Sponsor ("money manager"). This allows your donation to be tax-deductible.

Here's a little more about backpack programs and why they're so critical to our community.

• Bags go home with children who otherwise may not have enough to eat on the weekend.
• Children facing food scarcity often have other challenges in the home. As community members, we have limited ways to make a direct impact on vulnerable kids. However, we CAN help remove the burden of food scarcity.
• Food insecurity creates chronic stress for children, impacting their ability to learn and achieve academically. By ensuring that there is adequate food in the home, we help mitigate this developmentally detrimental obstacle.
• Hunger can cause children to be distracted or disruptive. The Backpack Program helps the entire school’s learning environment.
• Backpack Programs bags are received with gratitude by the families in need. For families and children that are struggling, this assistance is reassuring and encouraging.
• Meeting a student’s basic physical needs is a division-wide objective, as stated in the current HCPS Strategic Plan
• Backpack Programs are high impact for the time and money they cost to implement. Without any paid employees, 100% of donations fund the needs of children. Every hour of work directly benefits the children. There are very few programs that do so much with such a small investment.
• The Backpack Program benefits our teachers. Friday departures can be difficult, as many teachers worry about their students for a variety of reasons over the weekend. Teachers appreciate when their parent community is able to understand and take actions to help the most vulnerable kids. In this way, the Backpack Program emotionally supports our educators as well.