In a team effort between the North Texas Food Bank, the city of Plano and corporate sponsorships, 1,800 students in Plano ISD's elementary schools will receive a nutritious meal for every weekend of the school year for the next three years.

The project is called Food 4 Kids and provides a backpack filled with 60 percent of a child's nutritional needs throughout the weekend with healthy food that does not have to be cooked, said Jan Pruitt, president and CEO of North Texas Food Bank. The backpack is designed to last between the student's lunch on Friday and before they return to a school-funded breakfast on Monday morning.

The backpack program feeds more than 11,000 children across North Texas, Pruitt said. About 28 percent of children in PISD elementary schools are on food assistance programs.

"People outside Plano don't think Plano needs [a food assistance program], and people inside Plano don't realize the need that exists in the schools," Pruitt said. "What we know is that one in five children in Collin County is food insecure."

The program was started at the North Texas Food Bank in 2004. The nonprofit organization serves 13 counties, and began supplying backpacks to PISD students in 2008.

When the program started in Plano, Pruitt said the food bank did not have the funding to provide backpacks for all 1,800 students who are chronically food insecure. But things are changing for the 2014-15 school year.

Plano's Mayor Harry LaRosiliere committed to raise $1 million through corporate sponsorships to cover the needs of 1,800 students in PISD to receive backpacks for every weekend during the school year throughout the next three years. Pruitt said he is $30,000 short of his goal during the first year.

"Because of the mayor's effort, every school will have access to the program," she said.

Pruitt said the program is not an entitlement program. Children are identified solely by school administrators, and can be added to the program immediately so that by the following Friday, the child has a backpack of healthy food for the weekend.

"It's not so much about feeding their stomachs but it's feeding their minds and their souls," LaRosiliere said.

Pruitt said LaRosilere's mission to extend the backpack program goes beyond "the right thing to do," but it also helps get the next generation ready for the workforce and to grow Plano.

The North Texas Food Bank is stationed at 4500 S. Cockrell Hill Road in Dallas, but Pruitt said the organization is looking to build a new warehouse north towards Plano or Richardson by 2018.

The facility will serve as another station to prepare backpacks for the schools in the North Texan region, but Pruitt said it will also be a closer location for Plano volunteers.

"We want to bring this volunteer experience where people can work in our warehouse and help us close the meal gap in North Texas," she said. "We know its hard for people to drive across Dallas to come [to the current warehouse]."

For information about the North Texas Food Bank visit: web.ntfb.org.