Ausherman Family Foundation awarded Blessings In A Backpack with a $25,000 Partially Matching General Grant which will feed 250 low-income elementary school children over weekends, breaks, and school closings.  Blessings In A Backpack will put $15,000 toward operational expenses to feed 150 children and the $10,000 matching component will feed an additional 100 students.

Each week, volunteers gather to order, pick up and pack kid-friendly, nonperishable items and distribute to low-income families for each day that school meals are unavailable including weekends and school breaks.  These children may otherwise go hungry. Blessings In A Backpack’s primary objective is to eliminate food insecurity for at-risk children in the hope that it will provide a more stable nutritional foundation for healthy growth & development. Children served may be homeless, dependent on school meals as their primary source of nutrition and at risk of going hungry when school meals are unavailable.

Blessings In A Backpack reported that in the 2018 – 2019 school year, approximately 225 dedicated volunteers donated over 7,000 hours to pick-up and pack more than 932,000 items of food. Items are delivered to 19 Frederick County schools and school staff puts them into student backpacks in a caring and confidential manner. This work resulted in 100,000 hunger-free weekends and school breaks for an average of 2,500 students each week.

General Grants with or without a matching component are available on a rolling basis year round. For more information about General Grants or to apply, click here.