More West Des Moines Students Getting Weekend Food Assistance

The West Des Moines Community Schools Foundation’s Booster Pak program that helps ensure students get enough to eat on weekends is being expanded this year to .

The West Des Moines school district works with the Food Bank of Iowa’s Backpack Buddies program. Since it was established in 2006, needs have skyrocketed to serve 2,500 students, up from only 24 six years ago.

Even then, children are still going hungry on weekends, Carey Miller, the Food Bank’s executive director, told the Des Moines Register.

“There are so many children in need. We really are not reaching all of them,” Miller said. “With food prices and gas prices going up, that puts a strain on all families.”

The Booster Pak program in is serving about 590 elementary students, junior high and Walnut Creek Campus students. Extending it to just makes sense, said Melanie Menken, the Booster Pak president.

“We didn’t feel like hunger stopped after a kid got out of sixth grade,” Menken said. “We want to make sure they’re supported all the way through high school if the need is there.”

Menken said one in three students in the West Des Moines school district is “food insecure” and that number could increase when school opens Tuesday, stretching the program’s $42,000 budget, funded by grants and donations.

“People aren’t seeing the changes in our community,” she told The Register. “It’s an eye opener for people.

“We’ll be able to meet the demand we had at the end of the year, but I’m nervous about what’s going to happen this fall,” she said. “I don’t believe the economy has picked up enough to turn those numbers around significantly.”