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."
