Love in a Backpack Lends Support to Washington Family
When Amy lost her job as a school van driver due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her triplets were suddenly being home-schooled full-time and she knew she needed help to keep them from going hungry.
With the support of The Washington Salvation Army’s Love in a Backpack program, Amy found the help she desperately needed as a single mother.
“It’s such a relief knowing that my kids will have food if I cannot provide for them right this minute,” she said.
The Washington Salvation Army set up mobile food pantry sites to extend its Love in a Backpack program when schools closed due to the pandemic. During a typical school year, Love in a Backpack provides supplemental nutrition for children on weekends, allowing parents like Amy to provide healthy food options and the support they need. In 2020 alone, The Washington Salvation Army provided 32,000 bags of food for families in need through the Love in a Backpack program.
“Since I was not able to work, it was nice to not stress about how my kids would get those two additional meals each day. I am usually not expecting them to be home for breakfast and lunch, and that’s a lot added to the grocery bill, especially when you are relying on unemployment,” Amy said.
While Amy looked to The Salvation Army program to help feed her children during a tough time, she paid it forward by delivering Love in a Backpack meals to other local families in need during the pandemic.
“A lot of families don’t have a ton of gas money to go back and forth into town – I have a truck so I would load it up with food from Love in a Backpack and we would meet with families in a local parking lot and I would deliver to a couple houses that were on the way,” she said.
With the support of The Washington Salvation Army, Amy was able to provide for her children, and her family also received the added excitement of discovering which foods would be included in each Love in a Backpack offering.
“The kids were really excited about getting the meals and it was the highlight of their day,” Amy said. “We are just grateful, and Captain Amber is just amazing at what she does.”
Captain Amber Imhoff leads The Washington Salvation Army and said the importance of Love in a Backpack goes well beyond meeting the need of food insecurity in the community.
“It’s not just about giving food to people. It’s about the whole person. It’s about bringing families together. Statistically, families that don’t eat together are more likely to engage in harmful habits like drugs and alcohol abuse. So often we try to combat those problems after they’re epidemics. But what if we can help families heal first, with healthy food and good conversation around the dinner table? That’s my vision for the families we serve,” Captain Amber said.
Thanks to donors like you, Amy’s family and so many others are able to break bread together around the dinner table, and go to bed at night feeling warm, secure, and well-fed.