Gifts of Love wants to ensure that children have adequate food and nutrition over the weekend and is committed to helping families struggling to make ends meet. Gifts of Love saw a 50% increase in the Weekend Backpack Program at the start of this school year as compared to last school year and is now providing 179 kids with a backpack full of food to use over the weekend, every week - and the count keeps growing!
When some students go home on Friday afternoon, they aren’t just leaving behind their studies. Many of them leave behind the free meals provided at school and return after the weekend with empty stomachs.
Gifts of Love has created its Weekend Food Backpack Program to help fill this void. Each Friday, Gifts of Love distributes backpacks full of easy to prepare food and juice to be used by the family over the weekend and for the children to use for snacks throughout the week. Children pick up their backpacks in the office on their way home on Fridays and return the empty backpacks to the office on Monday mornings. Gifts of Love volunteers then fill the bags weekly. This program is completely anonymous and confidential and runs the duration of the school year.
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Understanding the need for this program, the Hartford County Bar Foundation recently donated $2,250.00 to sponsor five backpacks for the school year. Gifts of Love works tirelessly to raise the necessary funds to meet the increased need for services in the community. Seven years ago, Gifts of Love started the program with two backpacks in one Avon school. Now, the organization is helping 179 students in five towns and 27 schools. This would simply not be possible without community support like that of the Hartford County Bar Foundation!
To learn how you can support Gifts of Love and the Weekend Backpack Program, please visit www.giftsoflovect.org.
