Food donations accepted at area churches, American Bank & Trust and Tuesday's home volleyball game
With an overall increase in the cost of food, paired with a decrease in the amount of food donated by Feeding South Dakota, the Blue Bag Nutrition Program is asking the community for help with a food drive that is currently underway.
Blue Bag volunteers will be collecting food items at the elementary school gymnasium during the home volleyball game on September 12. Food requests include: fruit snacks, granola bars, microwave popcorn, pudding cups, fruit cups, applesauce, easy mac-n-cheese, juice boxes, individual packs of snacks (goldfish, cheez-its). Nothing that has to be refrigerated can be accepted.
While Wessington Springs School District provides free or reduced meals to children at risk of hunger during the school week, it does not address the needs of children when school isn’t in session and may otherwise go hungry on weekends.
This is where the Springs Blue Bag Nutrition Program fills an important void with its backpack program. This program provides children with nutritious, easy-to-prepare foods before school lets out for the weekend. Bags of food are sent home with over 20 students from the Wessington Springs School District each week.
Thanks to generous donations following a story published about the budgetary needs of the program in the May 31, 2023 edition of the True Dakotan, the program was able to continue to provide bags to food insecure Wessington Springs School District students over the summer.
Program organizers are grateful for all donations and those willing to donate or help pack blue bags may contact Rod Huisman at 605-770-5328.