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.

As of the fall of 2011, more than 625 children a week received these important food packs to supplement their food needs during the weekend hours. Growing demand for these emergency food initiatives continues into the 2011-12 school year.

Did you know that 41.5% of children in Kalamazoo County qualify for free and reduced price lunch?
 (2008 American Community Survey)