Conroe Independent School District Schools rallied together to help their fellow students by raising donations for the Montgomery County Food Bank and the Backpack Club.

The Backpack Club is a nation wide program that identifies the hungriest children in schools by faculty and staff referral. Then, the hungriest of the hungry are identified and are signed up for the program. As Doris Goleman, Director of the MCFB put it, “These children are coming to school famished. They’re starving because they haven’t eaten all weekend and that doesn’t help their learning.”

The program provides seven meals each weekend for selected children throughout the academic year. This is to ensure that children who would normally go without any food are able to eat dinner from Friday, as well as each meal through the weekend, to dinner on Sunday.

Over the last five to six years CISD teachers brought food to donate during their week of inservice before school starts, and in five years collected 60,000 pounds of food. This year however they were able to do even more, as it was determined that a $1 donation can purchase 11 pounds of food, not to mention monetary contributions are more convenient.

To kick off the school year all of CISD schools participated in a program deemed “Change for Change” and encouraged kids to donate any loose change they had to make a positive change in the lives of hungry children – their fellow classmates. The total donations came to around $20,000 for this one week of effort.

There are currently 203 students in the Backpack Club, with 75 more students scheduled to join. The Food Bank is hoping to extend the program to all of the CISD Elementary schools, and the more donations and food available the more they can reach out and feed not just the hungriest of the hungry, but the hungry children as well.

If you would like to take part in this outreach the Montgomery County Food Bank is always accepting monetary or food donations. You can contact Director Doris Goleman at mcfb@consolidated.net or call the MCFB at 936-539-6686.