Volunteers describe decade of weekend food packs, urge expansion to middle and high schools

An unnamed volunteer who said she has worked with Blessings in a Backpack for “probably 10 plus years” described packing weekend food bags and serving children in the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated Schools district, and other commenters urged expansion of the program into middle and high schools.

The remarks, recorded in the meeting transcript, centered on volunteers’ experience running the program, the need for weekend food for students, and organizers’ hopes to extend coverage beyond elementary grades. “I got started with Blessings in a Backpack probably 10 plus years ago,” one commenter said. “Coming here and packing the bags and getting to see some of the children who we are feeding during the weekends, that was huge.”

Program volunteers said demand in the community is high. “To know that the need in our community is as great as it is, I’m so thankful that we’re able to help out and help feed these kids,” another commenter said. A speaker who identified themself as a school counselor described a specific incident that prompted their involvement: “I caught her digging in the trash, after snack time in the classroom. And it was because she didn’t have anything to eat at home and she was hungry.”

The unnamed school counselor stressed the link between basic needs and learning: “They can’t learn if their basic needs aren’t being met.” The counselor said that providing weekend food removes a barrier to students’ success in school.

Volunteers described program development and governance responsibilities: one speaker said she later “ended up on the board for Blessings in a Backpack” and learned more about the community’s needs. Commenters said they would like to expand services to older students: “We are thinking and trying to hope to get it into our middle schools, and potentially even high schools because those kids also need the help,” one volunteer said. No timeline, budget, or formal action to approve an expansion was specified in the transcript.

The transcript does not record any motion, vote, or staff assignment tied to the remarks, and it does not specify funding sources, the number of students currently served, or which schools would be included if the program expands. Those details were not specified in the recorded remarks.

Speakers who addressed the topic were identified in the transcript only by turn labels; newspaper-style attributions in this article follow those labels to avoid misidentification. The meeting record provided the speakers’ accounts and aspirations but did not record any formal district response or next steps in the excerpt provided.