Behind the drive: Equipping students with food for the weekend

Melissa Krainer, Reporter|October 28, 2022

Hear the roar! Aboud takes a break from overseeing the packaging of the backpacks for elementary school students. He strongly believes in helping people and thinks it’s important that others volunteer, too. “I think it’s important that students get to feel what it’s like to help others. I think that’s an important lesson in life,” Aboud said.

He orders the food. She raises the funds. With the help of several volunteers, they provide elementary students with food for the weekends.

David Aboud and Kelly Robertson were both recruited in early spring for the Mountain Lion Backpack program. The mission of the program is to provide students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade food to eat for the weekends.

“The backpack program was begun around the country because educators were realizing that, especially younger kids, were coming to school on Monday, and there seemed to be a problem. They couldn’t seem to focus, and it took them a while to get the day going. What they discovered was that there were kids who got breakfast and lunch at school during the week, but they ate nothing at home,” Aboud said.

The backpack program started throughout the United States in 2011. Heather and Jim Little heard of this program and organized it in Altoona. Aboud became involved in the program as a volunteer ten years ago.

“I would come and help pack. The principal at the high school wanted to get high school students involved, and she volunteered to pack Penn Lincoln’s bags with students at the high school. She put me in charge of that. So I would work at the school with them, and then I would come [to the warehouse] to volunteer for the evening packings,” Aboud said.

The position for program manager became available in February. Aboud decided he would like to manage the program and continue to help students.

“I spent a lot of years teaching. I love teaching. I loved helping students. It was time to retire, but this program still allows me to be involved in helping kids. I don’t get to see them, but it seems to me that there’s a lot of kids in our community that benefit from [this program],” Aboud said.

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It’s very humbling to feed this many children. It has made me appreciate what I have, what I have seen, where I come from.

— Kelly Robertson

The program packs food 35 weeks of the year, 869 bags a week. Volunteers meet on Thursdays at 5 p.m. and on Wednesdays when school isn’t in session on Friday.

The program is community-supported by food and monetary donations. There is no government funding involved.

“If we had purchased everything that we put in these bags, it would cost us about $5,000 a week,” Aboud said.

In preparation for packing, volunteers prepare plastic bags while others open the packages of food. Once this has been accomplished, volunteers take a bag and proceed down the line of tables, picking up food items on the way and placing the bag into a crate once finished.

Several crates are stacked on top of each other and then are transported to waiting cars that drive to the elementary schools and drop off the bags. School personnel and/or volunteers take these bags and distribute them to each classroom for the families that applied.

“We do not require a family to prove that they need it financially. Any family that can benefit from having food is welcome to fill out the enrollment form that each school gave them,” Aboud said.

Aboud isn’t the only one that helps coordinate the program. Robertson’s job is to manage the fundraising and the public relations aspect.

Helping hands. Robertson accepts fish cans from a volunteer. She helped prepare the bags and helped pack on Sept. 28.

Robertson has a social work background in addition to experience with event planning and grant writing that helps her in her position as program director. She feels her experience with the program has made her appreciate the opportunities she has.

“It’s very humbling to feed this many children. It has made me appreciate what I have, what I have seen, where I come from. I definitely love the community. I moved to Altoona a year ago, but now I’m so in love with the community because of the outpouring of support that the program has from the community,” Robertson said.

Robertson aims to expand the program to students beyond the primary schools.

“I would like to feed, not just the elementary school children, but the junior high students [as well] because I know the need is great,” Robertson said.

Both Robertson and Aboud would like to see more student groups helping out on Thursdays.

“I’ve always been a big believer in volunteering. I think it’s important. I did student council for many years at the high school, and I always made sure that we were involved in the community,” Aboud said. “I think that’s important, and I think doing this helped me realize that it takes [the] community to make things happen and to help others.”