BackPack Walk 2015: 10 a.m. Saturday, April 11

BackPack Extra Mile: Each Kindness…

• What: BackPack Extra Mile Walk
• When: 10 a.m. Saturday, April 11
• Where: Lincoln East High School
• Why: Provide funding and education for the LPS/Food Bank BackPack Program

Greetings, everyone….It’s time for you to “save the date” for our eighth annual BackPack Extra Mile Walk – a time to remember “Each Kindness.”

The BackPack Walk is a time when Lincoln Public Schools employees join forces with the Food Bank of Lincoln once again for the annual one-mile fund-raiser set for: 10 a.m. Saturday, April 11, at Lincoln East High School.

We want to express our gratitude to everyone at Lincoln Public Schools, our staff, students and families, as well as community groups, who have participated in our past BackPack Extra Mile Walks. In seven years of walking, LPS employees have raised almost a million dollars for the Food Bank of Lincoln’s BackPack program to help address hunger for the children in our community.

The theme this year is “BackPack Extra Mile: Each Kindness,” and participants can go online to find various videos about the walk and the program – http://wp.lps.org/backpack/videos/

** LPS Superintendent Steve Joel is again offering an incredible reward: For anyone who donates $25 or more to the Walk will be allowed to wear jeans to work the entire week of April 6-10. Thank you, Dr. Joel!

For your background: The BackPack Walk is the major annual fund-raising community effort organized specifically by LPS employees – in support of the Food Bank’s weekly BackPack Program. The BackPack program provides a weekly Friday backpack filled with food to students who need help with family meals over the weekend.

We have two major goals for the annual BackPack Walk:

• Educating our community about the needs of children at Lincoln Public Schools
• Raising money for this valuable program

Please stay tuned for additional information about the Backpack Extra Mile Walk – coming in the weeks and months ahead. Meanwhile, please take a moment to consider walking this year.

If you have any questions – again, the BackPack Walk webpage is linked on the front of our website: www.lps.org. Also feel free to contact one of the members of the BackPack Extra Mile committee: Shari Styskal, Zachary Baehr, Sue Cassata, De Ann Currin, Gary Czapla, Pat Hunter-Pirtle, John Neal, Mary Kay Roth, Cindy Schwaninger, Liz Standish and Greg Tebo from Lincoln Public Schools – and Michaella Kumke, John Mabry, Alynn Sampson and Scott Young from the Food Bank.

Thank you for your support.

Please help us spread the facts about the BackPack Program

• Origin: The Food Bank of Lincoln launched the BackPack Program during the 2004-2005 school year at Clinton Elementary School, sending home food-filled backpacks on Friday afternoons with 50 kids.
  

• Simple concept: Children are our most important and valuable assets, and research shows that healthy, well-nourished children are much better learners. During the week, our students who qualify for free and reduced lunches are provided nutritious breakfasts and lunches at school. In fact, for some students, the school's breakfast and lunch are their only meals of the day. But during the weekend this can create a food crisis for these children and their families: a weekend can be a long time to go without food.

• Current numbers: Currently 2,472 students at 38 LPS schools receive weekly food-filled backpacks.

• Beyond LPS: The program now includes students from private and parochial schools in Lincoln, as well as from 29 rural communities.

• This year: During the first three months of the 2014-15 school year, a record 44,244 food-filled backpacks were distributed. At the conservative estimate of five meals per backpack, that means this year the BackPack program has provided 221,220 meals.

• Price tag: It costs about $225 for each student to receive a backpack for a year.

• Need grows: The need continues to grow dramatically:

• This school year 16,248 of Lincoln Public Schools students qualify for free and reduced lunch. That means 43.3 percent of all LPS students now qualify – 46.1 percent of preschool-fifth graders. Census figures from 2012 reveal there are 12,720 food-insecure children under the age of 18 in Lancaster County. (Food insecure meaning children do not know here their next meal will come from.)