May 20, 2024
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This food program was a nutritional lifeline to kids during the pandemic

National School Public Relations Association presents a Distinguished Service Award to Bags of Hope backpack food program

By Denise M. Baran-Unland

Bob Cichon, father of Bags of Hope founder Lana Howe, checks over food donations for expiration dates. Bags of Hope aims to feed food-insecure children from Joliet, Plainfield and Lockport schools on the weekends when it was founded it in 2016 and proved to be a nutritional lifeline to kids during the pandemic. (Allison Selk)

The Bags of Hope food program was recently recognized for “its work to feed District 202 students during the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a news release from District 2020 in Plainfield.

The Illinois chapter of the National School Public Relations Association recently presented Bags of Hope with its Distinguished Service Award.

The Lockport-based Bags of Hope, which was formed in 2016, is a volunteer-run program that provides “thousands of backpacks of nutritious, non-perishable food to hundreds of needy students in District 202 and surrounding areas,” the release said.

Tom Hernandez, director of community relations at District 202, nominated Bags of Hope for the award.

“Bags of Hope has been a lifeline to these families before, and especially during, this pandemic,” Hernandez said in the news release. “We are proud of them and grateful for the work they do. They richly deserve this honor.”

Pre-pandemic, about 150 students in approximately 20 District 202′s 30 schools received food from Bags of Hope each week.

That number jumped to 410 a week starting 2020 and remained at 410 per week throughout the summer.

Starting in September 2020, that number dropped to 390 students each week in all 30 District 202 schools and two schools in Lockport, too.

The students’ need for food is real.

“Many students leave school every Friday and go home to empty cupboards or food that really isn’t very good for them,” Hernandez said in the release.

This is how the program works. One group of 30 volunteers pack all the food bags for the students. A second group of 120 volunteers deliver the bags to the students’ homes.

Through working with the schools the District 202 office and community service groups, Bags of Hope has prganized many food drives to recruit new members and restock its supplies.

District 202′s first food backpack program was called Creekside Cares. A District 202 teacher had started it more than a decade ago with the goal of expanding the program to include students at all 30 schools.

For more information about Bags of Hope, visit boh2016.org.