By Matthew E. Milliken
mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684
DURHAM -- Gleeful voices emanated from a small dining room off the Bel Gusto restaurant at the Millennium Hotel early last Thursday morning.
"How can you not have the right amount of juice, guys?"
A handful of adults circled counterclockwise around a rectangular table in the diminutive room. Outside the room, a blue banner proudly announced the presence of Durham's Sunrise Rotarian club.
"We need a complete audit, guys, because it's not right."
As the group circulated, each person scooped up containers of juice, milk, vegetables and other foodstuff and dropped them into the colorful children's backpack he or she carried.
"Holly screwed up!"
"Two meats. I need a small veggie."
"We had rookies at the front."
The club was re-enacting a ritual that it will carry out nearly every Thursday morning from now through the end of the school year: assembling nourishment for 10 Forest View Elementary School students. It's all part of the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle's four-year-old Backpack Buddies program, which the club joined two years ago.
Forest View has 25 children in the program. (Another group packs 15 bags weekly.) Each backpack is sent home Friday with enough food for six meals -- breakfast, lunch and dinner over the weekend, when the youngsters can't get breakfast or lunch from the school.
David Reese, the chief of food distribution for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, said the bags settle stomachs and steady minds.
"Children perform better academically," he said. "Monday morning, they're ready to go because they've had nutritious meals over the weekend."
Data show that child food insecurity -- which the organization Feeding America defines as being hungry or being at risk of being hungry -- is fairly widespread in North Carolina. Feeding America says that 19.4 percent of the state's children are food insecure, more than in 40 other states. The Durham public school system had nearly 51 percent of its 2008-09 students enrolled in the free and reduced-price lunch program.
The shuttle will soon operate Backpack Buddies at three locations in the Durham. The beneficiaries: 25 children at Forest View Elementary, 75 children at the John Avery Boys and Girls Club and, starting Thursday, 25 children at Y.E. Smith Elementary.
Sherine Vernon is school counselor at Smith, where nearly 85 percent of youngsters were in the free/reduced lunch program.
"We welcome the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle coming to us and providing our families with this resource that we think is a necessary resource," she said.
Fred Bennett is director of operations for the John Avery Boys and Girls Club, where grocery bags are sent home with youngsters every Thursday.
"They look forward to the bags, both the kids and the parents," Bennett said. "We talked to some of the parents and they said that the food helped them out tremendously, and every Thursday, they are looking for a bag."
With Thursday's packing completed, the Rotarians sat down to breakfast and chat.
Mary Liebhold, a kitchen designer, said her small club -- it has about a dozen members -- was of one mind when Reese asked them to join Backpack Buddies.
"We can't hear about a project of this scope and leave it undone," she said. "Hungry children are not acceptable."
Backpack Buddies costs $330 per child per year. Both the Sunrise Rotary Club and the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle are accepting donations that would allow them to offer the program to more children. If you are interested in donating, visit http://www.foodshuttle.org/childprogram.html.
