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Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes began providing weekend food packs to children in 2005 as a partnership with Communities in Schools of Kalamazoo.
Participating children – enrolled with parental permission – leave school, or the summer feeding program they are associated with, on Friday afternoon with a weekend food pack. There is enough food in the pack to cover breakfast and lunch for that child during the weekend hours when other food options may be scarce.
Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes has seen service numbers soar during the summer months, in part because local children no longer have regular and easy access to school feeding programs. Families now have to try to provide those extra meals every day, even when their budgets don’t allow it. This is why KLF still operates the Weekend Food Pack Program during the summer when some schools are in session.
As of the fall of 2012, more than 800 children a week receive these important food packs to supplement their food needs during the weekend hours. Growing demand for these emergency food initiatives continues into the 2012-13 school year.