Club Buys Food For School Backpack Lunches
Scarborough Rotary delivered $1,000 worth of food to Judith Campbell, Director of Nutrition, Scarborough Schools and volunteer coordinator of the Backpack lunch program she founded. Funds were provided by a District Grant awarded to the Scarborough club.
Judith first explained the program when she was guest speaker at a club meeting in December, 2009. Following is the story by Win Winch from the December 1st, 2009 bulletin.
Judith Campbell, Director of Scarborough School Nutrition. She has been a registered dietitian for 25 years.
Today, she described Scarborough’s vacation backpack program for needy student’s families. While attending a meeting in Boston, she had heard about a weekend backpack program. After talking with the principals and reviewing their financial situation, they decided that they could afford to establish a similar program to cover vacations.
Judith explained how verbal the children were with the food workers as well as the custodial staff. Because of this frank relationship she is able to detect and report the family status to the school social workers before they have similar knowledge. Despite Scarborough being a wealthy community, there has been dramatic recent change.
Initially, L. L. Bean donated 45 backpacks. Her capable staff was then able to repair any flaws to make them serviceable. Project Grace was very helpful in providing funding. Both Hannaford and Shaws donated cash along with North Center Foods, her primary supplier donating food.
A typical vacation pack might contain left over fruit and vegetables, bread, peanut butter, jelly, one pound of spaghetti and one pound of macaroni, 4 cans of soup, 2 packages of cheese and crackers, small boxes of cereal, and shelf staple milk along with anything canned.
In addition there is a note requesting that the backpacks be returned before the next vacation. Often they come back with thank-you notes that will make you cry reported Judith.
For those who might wish to donate food, they can be dropped off at the Wentworth School Lunch office where she has her office.