East Texas schools tackle childhood hunger through backpack programs

Sabine ISD volunteer Misty Gee believes area school districts’ backpack programs help build relationships between families and schools.
“(Families) know that someone is looking out for them,” she said.

Districts, which rely on donations of money, food and more to operate the programs, are seeking community support as they begin to fill backpacks with food and other essential items for students to take home.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food insecurity is “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.” More than 25 percent of children living in Gregg, Harrison, Rusk and Upshur counties live with food insecurity, according to the national nonprofit group Feeding America.
(Read more from Longview News Journal)