BECOME A BUDDY
Because kids need to eat on weekends, too.
​At Backpack Buddies, we provide valuable weekend meals to children.
OUR MISSION
is to provide weekend meals to food-insecure children in metro Atlanta to enhance their mental and physical health as well as their ability to learn.
Each backpack is filled with nonperishable food,
including a minimum of:
5 Proteins | 2 Vegetables
2 Cereals | 2 Fruits
3 Snacks | 2 Juices
"Before Backpack Buddies,
my brother ate on Saturday
and I ate on Sunday.
Now, we both get to eat all weekend.
Thank You Backpack Buddies!"
OUR STORY
In 2017, a group of volunteers began gathering each week at an Atlanta synagogue to pack food for hungry children. They partnered with a local elementary school and identified 10 students dependent on the school's free breakfast and lunch program. Every Friday, the group delivered bags filled with non-perishable food to the school guidance counselor, who discreetly sent those 10 children home with enough food in their backpacks to last them through the weekend. Word spread and additional volunteers got involved. Backpack Buddies quickly expanded over the next few years, nourishing dozens more schoolchildren across Atlanta who were food-insecure on weekends.
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Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta received its 501(c)(3) status as a non-profit organization in 2022. It began the 2022-2023 school year feeding roughly 800 children each weekend across 27 schools. With the support of hundreds of volunteers at 35 churches, synagogues, senior centers, and other community agencies in metro Atlanta, along with the implementation of a more efficient operating model, we are now feeding more than 2,300 children each weekend across 50 schools!
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As Backpack Buddies continues to grow, so does our need for more donors, volunteers, and organizations to partner with us, whom we affectionately call "Community Buddies."
THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF HUNGER
