By Susan Summers
Thanks to St. Rita’s of the Desert Catholic Church Outreach Ministry, Vail Resources Food Bank has been able to extend the popular back pack program through the summer months, making it a year-round program going forward. This effort provides weekend packs of nutrition for area students who are registered through the food bank and, just to add a little excitement, it includes a few bonus items at various intervals such as Galaxy theatre tickets, STEM activities and a coupon for use at the Vail Depot Thrift Store during the week of July 8.
During the traditional school year the program is ably assisted by Vail USD’s “TSW” (Transition from School to Work) students, but during their summer break the back pack program would have paused if not for the partnership with St. Rita’s Outreach Ministry, spearheaded by Regina Tiedemann. According to Regina, “I enjoy helping the community beyond just the holiday periods, but I especially enjoy hearing students and parents say how much they love getting the back packs. The collaboration with the food bank has been great and I have felt welcomed.” Once the school year resumes in August, the back pack program once again will be sustained by Resources Vail Food Bank in partnership with the school district’s TSW program and St. Rita’s Outreach Ministry.
Because the nutritionally balanced back packs cannot be distributed via school sites in the summer, students are receiving them exclusively from the food bank, located “between the tracks” in Vail on Colossal Cave Road. Demand for the weekend back packs has been rising steadily over the past several months and food bank operations manager, Liana Hicks, is thrilled to assist and hopes that the parents of these students will register as regular food bank clients to receive additional food for the entire family during these difficult economic times. She reports that “the fall back pack program will be even better than before, with improved organization and more quality control in menus.”
It’s not too late to for parents to sign up their children for the summer nutritional back pack program, which ends in late July. To receive more information, contact Resources Vail Food Bank at (520) 338-2610. Food and monetary donations to this program are always needed; to find out more please visit the website: www.resourcesvail.org
