History

Prior to 2021, the Backpack Program in the Glens Falls City School District was run as 4 separate programs under each school's PTA (Big Cross, Jackson Heights, Kensington, and the Middle School).   The Open Door Mission provided the food to each school at no cost to the district. Each school had volunteers that picked up the food every week for their school and then packed the food to go home with the kids in the program.   After the 2020 school year, the Open Door Mission was no longer able to provide the food for this program.  Realizing how crucial food is to the students that had participated in The Backpack Program, especially during the pandemic, we knew we had to find a way to keep this program going.  With the financial support of the Glens Falls Nation Fund, we were able to continue to run our programs, though still separately at each building.   Some schools paid The Regional Food Bank to support their Backpack Programs.  What we found was that the food they provided often had to be prepared, like boxes of pasta and jars of sauce.   We really wanted the food that went home to specially be for the child receiving it and something a kindergarten student could easily open/prepare.   We also wanted to be mindful that some of our students may be living in temporary housing, such as a motel, and may not have access to a kitchen.  During the summer of 2021, we worked with the building principals and social workers to combine forces and create one Backpack Program for the entire district, calling it The Glens Falls City School District Backpack Program.   The program would serve all K-8 students in the district.   Our first hurtle was finding a space to work out of as the district didn't have any space that wasn't already in use.  After putting some feelers out, we were lucky enough to have a parent contact at the Christ Church United Methodist right in Glens Falls who was able to secure us a room in the church's office/preschool building at no cost.  We started the new consolidated program in October of 2021 under our middle school PTSA with 78 students in the program.  We found the best bang for our buck was to shop in bulk at big box stores such as Walmart and BJ's which we did weekly.    Every week, volunteers met to pack and deliver the food to each school building.  With the help of school food drives, local business donations, grants, and support from the Tri County United Way, we had a very successful year.  For the first time, in the summer of 2022, we were able to continue the program during the months of July and August.  We started the 2022 school year with 110 students in the program.   We also started looking at the possibity of becoming our own non for profit, rather than being under the PTAs.  This would allow us access to more funding through local grants.  This dream became a reality in October of 2022 when the GFCSD Backpack Program, INC. was established.   We currently have 155 students in the program in grades prek-8th.  

Read more about our program in Glens Falls Living https://www.glensfallsliving.com/blog/my-glens-falls-sara-dilandro

Hear more about our program on the Podcast "Just off Glen" https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-off-glen-podcast/id1556110058?i=1000628020094