Starfish Program at Wix-Brown Elementary School

Scott Johnson spoke to the Club about the Starfish program at Wix-Brown School.  Wix-Brown is an elementary school located in the rural southeast area of Langley.  The school has a large catchment area with a wide range of socio-economic households.  The school has 170 students.

Starfish is a program to help hungry kids have food to carry them through the weekend.  Students may have programs through the school to give them breakfast or lunch on school days, but they have no access to this during weekends, so they come to school hungry on Mondays.  Starfish gives each needy student a backpack of food to take home with them on Fridays so they have meals through the weekend.  The backpacks are returned on Monday to be refilled for the following weekend.

The backpacks of food reduce the stress on the families, since they know at least the basic need of food for their child will be met.  The program also has the benefit of helping some families who are isolated from the community to have the chance to socialize with the school staff.

The Starfish program is supported by the food bank, United Churches of Langley, Save On Foods, The School District Foundation and our Rotary Club.  Brookswood Secondary students pack the backpacks with food.