Backpack Buddies: Snowville program provides food to children over weekend

A program that gives some children access to healthy food during the school year is hoping to expand their service over the summer.

Backpack Buddies provides children at Snowville Elementary School with a backpack full of nutritious food to get them through the weekends when they don’t have the option of breakfast or lunch at school.
   
The program runs off of donations and support from local groups and businesses.
   
Thompson Tire in Radford is collecting food for the program.
   
Owners are hoping to collect enough food at its locations in Radford, Pulaski, Wytheville, Christiansburg, Salem and Rocky Mount to keep the program going through the summer.

“That’s sometimes when attention to our young people drops off,“ said Radford Store Manager Mel Tolbert. “We feel that we can kind of do a stop gap between the end of the school year and the start of school.“

Typical menu items for the backpacks include:

Soups: Chicken noodle, vegetable and beef stew
Canned Pasta: Spaghetti, ravioli, mac and cheese, etc
Meat Beenie Weenies, tuna, Vienna sausage, etc
Sliced cheese
Saltine crackers, ritz crackers, cheese its, graham crackers, etc
Peanut butter: in plastic
Jelly: in squeezable plastic
Cereal: assorted, low sugar
Applesauce or fruit cups
Pudding cups made with real milk
100% fruit juice
Granola type snack bars: nutri-grain, granola, cereal
Fresh fruit or vegetables: bananas, apples, oranges, baby carrotts
Milk
Bread products: buns, bagels, muffins, etc
Snack foods: raisins, animal crackers, fig newtons, goldfish, pretzels, dried fruits, trail mixes, etc

***All foods need to be in tab top or microwave containers—no glass

For information, contact Janis Carter/Snowville Elementary School Principal.

Contributions may be mailed to Backpack Buddies:
P.O. Box 708
Riner, VA 24149

OR

Snowville Ruritans
6935 Bleak Ridge Road
Hiwassee, VA 24347