Snack Pak 4 Kids

  • Basic Needs
  • Education
  • Family

Who We Are

It began with 10 hungry students at Will Rogers Elementary School in Amarillo. Dyron and Kelly Howell discovered Amarillo was the largest city west of Dallas without a weekend backpack program. And yet, more than 3,200 children in the Amarillo Independent School District relied only on the meals served to them at school for their weekly food. That meant hundreds of children spent their nights and weekends hungry.

Determined to find a way to address this need, the Howells assembled 10 bags of food that could be prepared without adult supervision. On Friday, September 3, 2010, the first 10 SP4K recipients received a bag containing enough food to get them through the weekend.

Today, the program has grown to serve more than 10,000 kids in 51 school districts. Our Snack Paks always contain brand new, brand-name food. And, thanks to our generous partnerships and a steady stream of volunteers, 100% of all donations given to SP4K are used to purchase food for hungry children.

At SP4K, we understand how overwhelming and scary creating a program to end weekend hunger for kids can be. That’s why we share our failures and our successes to help people like you make an impact in your community.

We have had our shares of ups and downs, but we never strayed from our mission: “To end weekend hunger for children by providing a backpack filled with kid-friendly snacks each Friday of the year.” Our focus is always on the kids, and we believe that is a major part of our success.

What We Do

Every other week at our warehouse, volunteers pack 14 brand new, brand-name nutritious food items in bags.  Each week they are delivered to participating schools. School staff then place the bags in backpacks to be discreetly sent home with students each Friday.

The educators we work with see first-hand how hunger negatively impacts children in the classroom. Students receiving the bags have been identified by school staff members as living in a “food-insecure” household, which means these families don’t always know the source of their next meal. The SP4K program feeds each elementary student and any siblings at home not old enough to attend school. 

We have expanded the program to serve middle and high school students with the Snack Shak program. Snack Shak allows students to select from a menu of 35 brand new, brand-name items. High school students can access the program via their school’s website without a teacher referral. This program is student-led and student-run on our high school and middle school campuses. Middle school students are referred by their teachers and staff similar to the elementary program.

Our Snack Shak program has grown to include numerous high schools and middle schools across the state of Texas, benefiting over 600 students weekly.

Details

Get Connected Icon (806) 626-9012
Get Connected Icon Becky Stogner
Get Connected Icon Operations Manager
http://sp4k.org