$35,919 raised by 84 donors
100% complete
$20,000 Goal
No child should be hungry.
Help KidsPak ensure food-insecure students in the Thompson School District of Northern Colorado have food to take home for the weekend so they can show up on Monday ready to learn.
KidsPak and TSD serve Loveland and Berthoud, plus sections of Fort Collins, Windsor, Johnstown, and unincorporated land in Larimer, Weld, and Boulder counties.Hunger is a painful experience that disrupts a student's ability to concentrate or participate in daily activities, and it affects 1 in 7 students in Colorado. Food insecurity prevents students from reaching their full potential and becoming successful adults. These consequences of hunger ripple into our greater society and cost all of us.
Did you know that food insecurity affects over 5,000 students in Thompson School District (TSD)?
For these students, school meals may be the only food they receive, meaning that without KidsPak they may stay hungry from Friday evening through Monday morning. Dire long-term developmental consequences of hunger may also result in low self-esteem, disruptive behaviors in the classroom, and anxiety. Proper nutrition is essential for academic success–hungry students are often left behind, and this gap affects the whole community.
It doesn’t need to be this way.
A well-respected community resource, KidsPak was founded in 2009 to combat weekend hunger by providing supplemental weekend food bags, enabling students to be ready to learn on Monday morning. KidsPak provides food to families in nearly 40 schools and teaches staff within TSD to recognize signs of hunger and confidentially connect students to KidsPak resources. KidsPak distributes about 650 bags across TSD each week, with each bag containing 6 meals.
Monthly donors increase impact! Allowing us to buy food when good pricing appears and stock for the future. Consider making a monthly gift to champion feeding kids in our community.
KidsPak focuses on providing weekend meals to food-insecure students, allowing them to reach their full potential. This is achieved through partnering with our schools, community, donors, and volunteers.
In early 2009, a member of the Loveland Rotary Club in Colorado saw a national newscast about the explosion of weekend backpack food programs. Dismayed by the prevalence of hunger among school children, they contacted the Thompson School District to find out if they had a similar needs. While the school functioned as a safety net during the week, they had no way to support these kids during the weekends. Within a few weeks, Rotarians created the new program, KidsPak.
KidsPak educates every teacher with a list of 17 criteria to help them evaluate a student for signs of hunger, a tool created by the USDA. School staff are able to speak with parents/guardians to receive permission and distribute bags directly to the students, maintaining the confidentiality and dignity with which families are served.
KidsPak began with 34 students from three schools and, by the end of the first full year, was serving over 100 students. In 2021, KidsPak grew to become a 501(c)3 agency in its own right. In the early 2023-24 school year, the number of requests was nearing 700 per week. More than at any time either before or during the COVID Health Emergency.
According to Hunger Free Colorado, nearly 1 in 5 Colorado children may not know when or where they will receive their next meal.
With food insecurity in our nation at an all-time high, we are asking for your help to meet unprecedented need right here, in the community where you live. Your dollars are carefully stewarded, leveraging over 800 volunteers per year, so most of our dollars go directly to food purchases. Can you be a KidsPak Champion?
Organization name
KidsPak, Weekend Food Bags
other names
(previously Loveland Rotary KidsPak, since 2009)
2021
Tax id (EIN)
86-1897223
Category
Food, Agriculture & Nutrition, Education, Public & Societal Benefit
Organization Size
Medium Organization
Address
PO Box 2078Larimer County, CO, US
Loveland, CO, US
Berthoud, CO, US
Weld County, CO, US
Boulder County, CO, US