• Last year saw the formation of a new organization designed to provide assistance to school aged children in the Groton School District who may not be receiving adequate meals on weekends.
• The organization put together a bag of food for students to take home at the end of the school week. The bag of food is designed to supplement the student's food intake over the weekend and allow the student to come to school on Monday properly nourished and ready to learn. Each bag contained food for two meals a day plus snacks for each day.
• "By meeting a student's basic needs, such as hunger," Groton Elementary Principal Dan Dalchow said, "We can make learning much easier for a student."
• The program is open to all Groton students and has no ties with the Free/Reduced lunch program. They do however; use the Free/Reduced Lunch program as a basis to predict how many students may use the program. According to the Groton School District website, there were 592 students enrolled in the district last year and of those, 18.5 percent received free/reduced meals. This means that the program's potential is over a 100 students.
• "Just because a student receives a free/reduced lunch doesn't mean they don't have adequate food over the weekend," Dalchow said, "We expect that only about 5 percent need the program, that's not a large percentage of the population, but the need is there."
• The BAGS program kicked off last January with the focus on getting the program up and running. The program was only available to students in the elementary school. On average there were 10 bags distributed each week to needy students for the rest of the school year.
• "The program started slowly," Dalchow said. "But that allowed us to work out any kinks as we went along. The real drive will come this fall, when school starts up again."
• Dalchow also stressed that complete confidentially will be kept with the program.
• "I will be the person handing out the bags each week at the elementary school," Dalchow said. "The food will be placed in the student's locker at school towards the end of the day. No one else will have access to names; everything will be kept completely confidential."
• The food will be distributed in regular plastic bags to help keep that confidentiality. Ken's Food Fair has donated the bags to be used.
• "The plastic bags won't be noticed," Dalchow said. "The students are always carrying plastic bags home from school."