BRUNSWICK

When the new school year starts in 20 days, so will a program to help area students stave off weekend hunger pangs, helping them arrive in class Monday mornings ready and able to learn.

Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program announced its BackPack Program during a press conference Monday at Coffin Elementary School. According to Karen Parker, MCHPP’s executive director, the goal is to fill each eligible student’s backpack with a variety of foodstuffs, recipes and other helpful information each Friday afternoon so that they and their families don’t go hungry before returning to school the following week.

In partnership with Maine Women’s Giving Tree — which donated $5,000 to help start the program — and Good Shepherd Food Bank, MCHPP has undertaken what is the largest such child hunger-prevention effort in the state.

The initial phase of the BackPack program will benefit more than 200 children in eight area schools. Total cost of the program is about $50,000 per year; the cost of feeding each child per school, per year, in the program is estimated to be about $250.

“These children come to school already hungry and knowing that they’ll get something to eat there, but the school’s reach stops there,” said Meredith Sciacca, a first-grade teacher at Coffin Elementary School. “This kind of program is going to help us go beyond what we can do here at the schools.”

Sciacca is one of the teachers who will surreptitiously wedge food into students’ knapsacks every Friday afternoon throughout the school year.

She plans to make her move during times when the children are out of the classroom or at lunch. It’s part of an effort not to publicize which children are receiving the food.

“We’ll talk to them beforehand and tell them what to expect in their backpacks so it’s not a surprise,” Sciacca said. “Because, you know, first- and second graders are not the greatest at subtlety, or keeping secrets.”

Locally, the program will start with 21 children — or one student in each classroom, said Steve Ciembroneiwicz, Coffin Elementary’s principal.

“We’re going to start small and then build on that,” he said.

Ciembroneiwicz said he, too, was shocked to learn the extent of child hunger in a town perceived to be as affluent as Brunswick.

“You stop and think about one in each classroom, that’s 15 or 20 percent of the student body here. We have about 38 or 39 percent (who qualify for) free or reduced lunch, so I think the town is realizing that there are a lot of needs.”

U.S. Sen. Angus King spoke at the morning press conference, to praise the groups’ efforts to feed the children.

“In this society, there’s no excuse for people being hungry,” King said. “I think this is a brilliant solution. We have the wherewithal, we have the food. It’s often a question of how do we make the food available?

“It’s a lot of logistics, to gather the food and get it to people across the state is a major logistical exercise,” King added. “What we’re talking about here is the last mile, this is getting food the last mile to homes at a time and for people who most need it.”

The Brunswick resident and former governor also lambasted his congressional counterparts for balancing the federal budget on the backs of the hungry.

“In Washington, D.C., we’re going through this strange phenomenon where people are cutting food aid, and trying to reduce the (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) program — not by a little bit, but significantly,” King said.

Cuts currently proposed at the congressional level would require doubling the nation’s food bank capacity, he added.

“It may be saving the federal government some money, but it’s simply shifting that cost to other people, and to our communities,” King said.  “That’s not the way to balance the federal budget.”