Scattered thunderstorms early, then becoming clear after midnight. Low near 60F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%..

Scattered thunderstorms early, then becoming clear after midnight. Low near 60F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.

With inflation eating away at family food budgets, the Bertie Backpack program is more important this year than ever before, and is seeking donations.

While the program fills the stomachs of Bertie County’s most needy school-aged children, it also feeds the minds of those children in need. Statistics prove that hunger impedes learning, and the Bertie Backpack program works hand-in-hand with the Bertie County School’s to alleviate weekend hunger.

Backpacks are filled with nutritious, kid-friendly food that are distributed to children to take home on the weekend. This program is designed to ensure children that might go without have access to healthy food over the weekend.

Going into it’s sixth year of operation, the program could offer assistance this year to as many as 215 Bertie County children over weekends when not in school.

Backpack program co-founder Ronald “Ron” Wesson has a passion for filling plates.

“We just completed our fifth year in existence,” said Wesson, adding, “This past year we fed 185 elementary school kids from four schools each weekend. This coming year we will add a select group of middle school kids who ‘aged out’ of our elementary school program, but whose families still need assistance. We anticipate that our starting count for year six will be 215 kids served.”

The Backpack program seed was planted for Wesson six years ago when he attended the

kickoff of a Backpack Program in another county.

“There was a third grade little girl who spoke and told us that when she leaves school at the end of the week, she is never sure who she will be spending the weekend with; it’s usually her grandfather she said, who claimed that she ‘eats too much’… but then, with the biggest smile I have ever seen, she said, ‘now I have my Backpack.’ I knew then that I had to try to help kids in similar situations here in the community that I love and that helped raise me,” shared Wesson.

Bertie Backpack offers food to children identified and selected by the school counselors, social services, the Cooperative Extension nutritionist, who visits and supports the schools, and a limited number of call-ins from families, Churches and concerned citizens. but all must be qualified by each elementary school before they are added to the program.

The program coincides with the standard school year from late August through May. During the summer between the two heavily impacted COVID-19 years, the organization partnered with the school system to provide meals delivered to homes throughout that summer, but now the organization is focused only on the school year.

Monetary donations, large and small, from corporations and citizens are the backbone of the Backpack program.

While supply chain disruption and the rising cost of inflation are affecting families everywhere, Wesson and his team have overcome these problems securing product from local food banks.

“The product part is easy for us since we purchase all of our weekly ‘Pre-packaged Food Packs’ from our regional food bank; The Food Bank of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City; plus fresh fruit (at reduced prices) from our local Food Lion,” said Wesson.

The problem Bertie Backpack currently faces is that the need is greater than the resources.

Prior to the Pandemic, there was always a backlog of 25-35 qualified kids on a waiting list that were identified, but not served. The number exploded with COVID-19, and the rising cost of food and delivery from the food bank added to the depletion of funds. When the program began, Backpack concentrated on growing funding through a grassroots effort to help build awareness of the program across the communities served.

“These are our children, and a hungry child cannot learn, has been our motto,” said Wesson, “and while our motto is the same, we recognized that we needed to solicit more from local and external funding sources. We now have three supporting grant funders; Vidant/Bertie Community Fund, United Way of the Albemarle Region, and Perdue Protein, which donates every other year. However, the vast majority of our funding still comes from local individual donations.”

Since the organization only solicits funding during the summer months, the next few weeks are critical to the Bertie Backpack program. While they send out annual letters to targeted citizens, work through churches, local businesses and civic organizations, they are in need of more donations.

One hundred percent of all money raised goes directly to buy food packs and fresh fruit for the children. The operating costs of the program are paid each year by the four founding partners, Dr. Ben Speller, John and Cindy Davis, Solid Foundation Facilities and Ron and Dr. Patricia Wesson.

“Citizens have given generously because they know that every single cent they give goes to feed children. At the end of each solicitation summer, we divide the funds raised by the $195 it takes to feed each child for the year, and that determines how many we can help,” said Wesson.

For more information and to donate to Bertie Youth, Inc. go to https://www.facebook.com/youthbertie.

John Foley can be reached via email at bertienews@ncweeklies.com.

Thadd White can be reached via email at twhite@apgenc.com.

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www.BertieLedgerAdvance.com 109 S King St Windsor, NC 27983 Main Phone: 252-794-3185 Customer Care Phone: 252-329-9505

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