Thanks to the Scarborough Schools’ Nutrition Backpack Program – which provides children in need with backpacks full of food during school vacations – Scarborough schoolchildren no longer have to go hungry during breaks from school.

It’s school vacation, a time most kids look forward to. They get to sleep late, and then spend the day just hanging with friends, making snowmen and sledding instead of studying.

But for some Maine children, school vacation also is a time for being hungry. Their families don’t have enough money to feed them, so time off from school means time off from the free or reduced price school breakfasts and lunches that those children rely on.

But thanks to the Scarborough Schools’ Nutrition Backpack Program – which provides children in need with backpacks full of food during school vacations – Scarborough schoolchildren no longer have to go hungry during breaks from school.

The program, funded through donations, is now in its second year. The need is growing – even in the affluent community of Scarborough.

During last year’s April school vacation, 46 backpacks went home with hungry children. At the start of the Christmas vacation this school year, 70 food-stuffed packs accompanied needy students home, said Judy Campbell, director of food services for the Scarborough schools.

“There are many people in Scarborough who do not have work, so the need is definitely there,” Campbell said. The food went to students of all ages, ranging from kindergartners to high school seniors, she said.

The problem is not unique to Scarborough. In Saco, the Governor John Fairfield School just started a backpack program based on the one Principal Maureen Talbot McMullin had heard about in Scarborough.

Just before the Christmas holiday, the Fairfield Nutrition Backpack Program got underway for the first time and sent food home to the families of 32 of the 300 students at the elementary school.

“It’s the same everywhere,” McMullin said. “It’s a very tough economy right now, and these children are used to receiving their breakfast and lunch here and all of a sudden it gets taken away from them.”

There are a lot of hungry children in Maine, according to Feeding America, a hunger-relief charity based in Chicago. The group says that 19.5 percent of children in the state experience food insecurity. That term is used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for households that can’t afford enough food to prevent some members from going hungry at some point during the year.

Nationwide, Feeding America says many needy children relay on school breakfasts and lunches to make up for the food their families are unable to provide at home.

That’s why that organization started a pilot BackPack Program in 1995. The pilot program became an official national program in 2006, according to the group’s Web site, feedingamerica.org.

Campbell learned about the program at a conference, and got the idea of starting the backpack program in the Scarborough a couple of years ago. Campbell said about 13 percent of the approximately 3,400 students in the Scarborough schools qualify for free or reduced school breakfast and lunch.

Feeding America’s program gives backpacks to needy students on weekends as well as during school vacations. Campbell started with a smaller program, designed to fit Scarborough’s resources and staff.

“I knew we couldn’t do weekends, but I knew we could do vacations,” Campbell said. “I wanted to start with something we could accomplish.”

Scarborough schools provide the backpacks for February and April vacations and for the Christmas break, she said.

In Saco, McMullin said that school plans to provide food for one long weekend – at the time of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in January – and also for the February and April school vacations.

The next step in a backpack program is identifying the children in need, which Campbell said is not hard to do.

“My workers will come to me and say, ‘This child is very hungry. He talks about how he didn’t have anything for dinner yesterday and today was his first meal over the weekend,” she said.

The nutrition program staff also talks to school guidance counselors, social workers and nurses to find out who needs help, Campbell said.

At the Fairfield School in Saco, which just launched its program after Principal McMullin learned about the effort in Scarborough, the kitchen manager and school staff provided names of needy children.

The Feeding America national backpack program provides food in the backpacks that is child-friendly, non-perishable and easily consumed. Scarborough and Saco follow that model, using boxed or canned goods that kids like.

The foods packed in Scarborough for the holiday break included bagels, bread, and cereal, spaghetti sauce and macaroni, and peanut butter and jelly, Campbell said.

Saco provided similar foods, including canned tuna and mayonnaise, rice and dried milk, McMullin said.

The idea is to provide breakfast lunch and dinner, not just for that one child but for their families, she said.

The emphasis is on healthy foods, both Campbell and McMullin said.

For example, Campbell said, graham crackers are included if available but cookies generally are not.

The national program distributes the backpacks discreetly to needy students.

In Scarborough, Campbell said, to protect a child’s privacy sometimes their parents will come and pick up the backpacks – which can get heavy – and sometimes the packs quietly get handed to students before they board a bus for home.

At the Fairfield School in Saco, the program is so new it didn’t have any backpacks, so boxes were used instead to give away the food this holiday season, McMullin said. She said some parents picked up the food and school staff and volunteers delivered it to other families at their homes.

Like the national program, the Scarborough and Saco backpack initiatives rely on donations.

McMullin said she was prepared to go the local community but said that Hannaford supermarkets agreed to partner with the school this year and is donating all the food.

“It truly is a Christmas wish come true,” McMullin said of the company’s generosity. “The families are very appreciative.”

Scarborough relies on donations from businesses and also nonprofit organizations such as Project Grace in Scarborough, Campbell said.

In anticipation of the holiday break, she said, L.L. Bean donated about 50 backpacks. And when the number of needy children this year grew to 70, exceeding expectations, Hannaford donated about 20 carry bags for the children to use instead, Campbell said.

Individual donors also give money and food. In fact, three Scarborough children at their birthday party this fall asked their guests to bring food items for the backpack program instead of presents for them.

Kelly Murphy, the mother of 8-year-old twins Fiona and Killian, who are in second grade at the Bluepointe School, and their brother Cormac, 4, said the three had a joint birthday party in October at which their approximately 25 guests all brought food donations.

She said she was surprised to learn that children in Scarborough were going hungry. Donating to the backpack program, Murphy said, helped her children “understand that there are kids who have less fortunate lives than we have.”

And instead of feeling upset they didn’t get birthday presents, Murphy said, “they were proud of themselves when we dropped the food off.”

Sheri Bell, left, and Jen McKillop fill backpacks with donated food on Monday morning at the Wentworth Intermediate School in Scarborough. The backpacks will go to children in need this holiday season and is put on by the Scarborough Schools Nutrition Program. (Staff photo by Brandon McKenney)