Speaking to the Aldergrove Rotary Club on Friday April 16, Parkside Elementary School principal, Cathie Gracie, who was Parkside's vice principal when the Program started, stated that the Starfish backpacks are critical to the 29 families participating.
“They really count on the weekend food that comes home every Friday afternoon,” she emphasized.
It was six years ago this month – the first Friday after Spring Break in 2015 – that the first Starfish backpacks provided hungry school kids with food for the weekend.
Agreeing to be part of the Rotary pilot program to test the system and the need, Parkside and Shortreed Elementary schools each identified 10 students who were coming to school hungry Monday mornings and organized distribution of the trial backpacks until year end.
In six years, those 20 Starfish backpacks morphed into 65; the number of schools grew from two to four, and in total over 13,000 nutritious, easy-to-prepare weekend meals have made their way into the homes of hungry kids in Aldergrove.
“The ongoing financial support from community organizations such as the Thank You for Caring Society has helped the program grow and secure not only the future of the Starfish Program, but also the future of those students for whom learning on an empty stomach was next to impossible,” Fox added. “We look forward to many more years of providing this type of help to families in need.”
More information can be found at starfishpack.com.