Bags of Love
Fighting hunger in our own backyard…Please give food or funds to help!
Bags of Love Weekend Backpack Program – East Union Elementary
More than 22 million children receive free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program. For many of these children, school meals may be the only meals they eat. What happens when they go home over the weekend?
East Union Lutheran Church, along with other area churches, is participating in a Weekend Backpack Program for 15 East Union Elementary students. EULC's dates of responsibility are from March 27 to June 2. This includes Spring Break March 27-31.
Each bag of food must provide nonperishable easy-to-prepare food. Each bag of food needs to contain fruit and vegetables, and provide nutritious, substantive meals for kids to eat at home. A sample bag includes the following items: a can of pears, a bag of rice, a can of green beans, a can of chunk chicken, and a can of chicken noodle soup.
Below is a breakdown of the categories of food for each bag:
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Canned Protein: Chunk Chicken, Tuna, Salmon, beans, etc.
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Canned Fruit: Pears, Peaches, Applesauce, etc. (in its own juice or water)
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Canned Vegetable: Green Beans, Peas, Carrots, Mixed Veggies, etc. (low sodium or no salt added)
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Canned: Soup, Stew, Chili, Ravioli
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Boxed or Bagged Base: Pasta, Rice, Beans (ex. pinto beans), Oatmeal
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Additional food may be given, but please remember that we are attempting to keep the weekly food bags between 4-5 pounds. Healthy snacks may include fruit cups, raisins, granola bars, peanut butter, etc.
You can donate food (using the above guidelines) or monetary donations to help in this effort. Food will be collected on a table in the Fellowship Hall. We will have a box on the same table where monetary donations can be made. We will make it a congregational service event to help put these bags together. If you are interested in helping back these weekend bags, please join us after fellowship on the following days:
- Sunday, March 12
- Sunday, March 26
- Sunday, April 9
- Sunday, April 23
- Sunday, May 7
- Sunday, May 21
Thank you all for your help on this project. We pray the Lord's richest blessings upon all our efforts to work together to help these children and their families.
If you have any questions regarding this service project, please contact Erica Wirtz - 952.479.7228 or erica.j.wirtz@gmail.com.
