With the shortened summers, back-to-school time seems to sneak up on us. As an adult with no kids in school, it often seems like there is no summer break at all. Yet here we are back in school again. With the return to school comes a return of children who need nutrition on weekends.

Love Chapel is in its fifth school year of providing weekend nutrition to school children who have inadequate food on weekends. We call them Love Chapel Care Packages. The concept seems simple, yet we ended last school year providing Love Chapel Care Packages to over 800 students each week. We provide this service each week during the school year.

Here is an overview of how the program works. Every Friday, counselors and teachers at 13 elementary schools and Busy Bees identify children lacking nutrition on weekends. The counselor then enters the numbers for that school on a Google Docs spreadsheet, which is accessible to Love Chapel.

Love Chapel has an off-site warehouse where we store food purchased for Care Packages. Every Tuesday, Love Chapel volunteers pack the food for each school and load it on pallets. Then on Thursdays, Love Chapel drivers load the pallets onto our truck and deliver them to the 14 schools. School volunteers then pack the food into plastic bags and discreetly place them into the children’s backpacks to go home with them on Friday.

Items are rotated weekly but may include peanut butter, crackers, fruit cups, nutrition bars, protein in a can (Spaghetti-O’s, etc.), and other items. We also include handouts to let the families how they can access our food pantry and hot meals. It is a great service, but also a costly one.

According to Love Chapel estimates, the program runs between $80,000 and $96,000 a year to fully complete the number of packages given out. We have been so fortunate to have two donors who have stepped up and donated $50,000 of matching funds to double the impact of any gift others may make. It is a wonderful way to fund this program through the next school year! If you would like to donate, please go to Home – Love Chapel (columbuslovechapel.com), click on donate, and select School Cares Packs!