With your help, the popular School Food Centers being used in 18 communities across our six-county region have grown from the roots of the BackPack Program, which provides food to students to take home over the weekend. These centers have taken the best parts of the BackPack Program and adapted them to fit what is most needed now.
One School Food Center can be found at Enfield Elementary School. Partnering with the local pantry to support students and their families, it is set up just like a pantry, but located within the school. A long-time BackPack Program partner, Enfield saw its priorities shift during the pandemic, making the switch an easy choice.
“Almost two dozen kids got backpacks, and one of the things we started to hear from families was that they wanted more control over what food was coming home, that they were getting a lot of some things and not enough of others,” says school Principal Keith Harrington. “We have a huge population of students, staff, and community that could benefit from a wider program anyway. So that was the kernel of where this idea started, to provide more choice to a bigger population.”
Aileen Granger, Associate Principal at Enfield Elementary and the staff member who oversees the program, cites Enfield’s more rural location despite its proximity to Ithaca.
“A term that gets sort of thrown around a lot is ‘food desert,’ meaning that people don’t have local access to healthy foods, so this is a way to combat that and work directly with kids and staff in the building to destigmatize where and how we’re nourished,” she says. “Having it be a grocery center rather than the BackPack Program has allowed for some choice for our kids when they are choosing foods that they like.”
Having the ability to work with the Enfield Food Pantry has helped the School Food Center tremendously.
“We’ve been fortunate to work closely with the Enfield Food Pantry and we have some staff that volunteer as well,” says Aileen. “We’ve been really cognizant of having similar goals and similar missions but not wanting to duplicate the same work. We’re able to get our snacks with our partnership from the Enfield Food Pantry and that way we’re able to focus on getting foods into our food center that kids and staff alike are going to be making choices about to take home.”
Thanks to you, sites like the Enfield School Food Center can continue to provide for their communities.
“Because of gifts from donors, we have the freedom to look at what the kids want and be responsive to our community, and we’re really grateful for that,” Keith adds. “We have repeatedly heard requests for fresh produce, fresh fruits, frozen meats, and frozen breads. Those things tend to be more expensive for families. Having the funds that allow us to have those here and available to families is really fantastic.”
“What I’ve felt each time that I’ve come in is all the individuals in this school really feel a sense of ownership here now, and they feel a sense of place and purpose,” Keith says. “You walk in and it’s not a mess. We’ve got over 200 people using this space, and it is, to me, one of the most cared-for spaces in the school. And that’s no small thing. That is a visual and a physical representation of a deepening partnership, even between us and our students.”
