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MIX 101.5 to Hold “Bill & Sheri’s Backpack Buddies” Food Drive for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle
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Lots of kids who get free and reduced-price lunches at school get no nutrition on weekends. In the 7 Triangle region counties, over 80,000 children depend on the free lunch program.
MIX 101.5 WRAL-FM is partnering with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle for “Bill & Sheri’s Backpack Buddies” on Friday, September 29th to help children in the Triangle. From 6am – 6pm, MIX 101.5 WRAL-FM will be collecting donations at Crossroads Plaza in Cary, Crossroads Boulevard in the parking lot just past Coconuts on the left (map). The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle will have trucks on site to load the items into at the time of drop off.
The Backpack Buddies Program is organized by the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle of Raleigh and targets kids who access free and reduced-price lunches at school, but need other nutritional support over the weekends. Children from targeted neighborhoods and schools are identified, and are handed backpacks loaded with appetizing healthy foods to tide them over the weekend. Local corporations, civic groups and individuals help collect backpacks which are filled with kid-friendly nonperishable food packed by the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle volunteers. Empty backpacks are collected, and then re-filled for the next weekend’s use.
The list of items needed is as follows:
- new backpacks
- shelf-stable juices and milk boxes
- healthy snack foods like fruit leather, raisins, granola bars
- breakfast items like small boxes of cereals, packets of instant grits, oatmeal, hot cereals
- microwavable single-serving pop-top soups, stews
- canned meats (preferably tuna) in pop-top containers
- individual servings of fruit cups, applesauce
- instant mac-and-cheese packets
- any kid-friendly healthy food that does not require stove-top cooking or a can opener
The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, in the belief that hunger is unacceptable, alleviates hunger by developing systems to recover, prepare and distribute wholesome, perishable food for the area’s poor, hungry, undernourished and homeless.
Thanks to WRAL-FM’s Brandon Alexander for this capcom story.
