Kidspak doubles food bags
‘Food is gold, and trying to get enough with these larger quantity demands is a challenge’
Families within the Thompson School District picked up 1,215 bags of food from Kidspak last Friday — double the nonprofit’s busiest week ever of food distribution.
“I just think it’s that so many families are on the edge with loss of jobs or part-time jobs,” said Tom Carrigan, volunteer who runs the Rotary program. “I just think the need is getting bigger.”
Typically, Kidspak sends bags of food home each weekend with students in need at schools across the district. Last year, the program averaged 540 bags, and the year before it hit a record of 630 bags.
When the Thompson School Dis
trict closed its buildings in March due to the pandemic, the volunteer-driven program pivoted and began handing out the bags of food to families that stop by to pick up meals from the Thompson School District Nutrition Ser vices Program. Families just need to ask for a Kidspak bag.
As more families struggled and the word spread, the number of bags increased. Last Friday, Sept. 18, the program handed out a record 1,215 compared to 977 the week previous.
“Since our last regular deliver y on March 11, nothing is normal,” Carrigan said, noting that from March to the end of the school year, Kidspak distributed 18,000 bags of food. Each bag contains multiple meals.
In June, July and August, the program gave out 32,000 meals in 6,500 bags of food.
Volunteers with Kidspak are distributing bags to any family in need during set hours ever y Friday, working alongside school district staff that are handing out prepackaged lunches and breakfasts.
Like Kidspak, the school district fed a larger number of kids than typical in its summer food program.
“For the past several summers, I would say at least three to four years, we would do a total for the whole summer of 25,000 to 30,000 meals tops, for the whole summer,” said Lisa Kendall, director of nutrition ser vices. “This year, we did over 80,000.”
Some of the increase is because breakfast was included in the bags with lunches, and students did not have to make a separate trip for that meal, and because the program was extended longer into August than normal. But at nearly three times more, Kendall said there also is more of a need because of the pandemic.
And between Sept. 1 and Wednesday, the district ser ved 48,651 meals to students who came to set locations to pick up food. On Sept. 1, there were 1,800 meals. The highest day was Tuesday with 3,400.
The goal of both programs is to get food to as many students as possible to make sure they are fed, particularly when they are not in school. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently extended funding for school districts to provide food to any student in need, without looking at income requirements.
And Kidspak always aims to provide weekend food to students in need. If a child does not eat on the weekend, he or she cannot learn until Wednesday, putting them behind in school, said Corrine Carrigan, who runs the volunteer program with her husband, Tom. That puts them 72 days behind every year, a gap that it is almost impossible to close, according to Corrine Carrigan.
While the demand has increased, the supply has not. Tom Carrigan said it has been difficult to find healthy foods in large quantities for the nonprofit program with pandemic-related disruptions to the supply chain.
But, he said, they have been resourceful in finding supplies. Loveland’s Safeway stores worked to provide 1,800 jars of peanut butter for the program, an area distributor helped them access 10,000 cartons of Fairlite Milk, and the list goes on.
And like typical consumers seeing supply limits, Kidspak also has seen an increase in prices. Previously, through their partners, the nonprofit could fill a bag of food for $4. That is now at $6, Carrigan said.
The nonprofit has been “blessed with grants” during the pandemic, Carrigan said. He and grant writer, Paul Miller, have applied for about 20 grants, ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 and have been successful at being awarded money. They have received grants from both the Albertson’s-safeway Foundation and the Kroger Foundation, from other state and local sources, from Larimer County Department of Human Services. And just recently, Carrigan learned that Kidspak will receive $66,000 from the Larimer County share of the federal CARES Act money.