District collecting food donations for backpack program

West County’s FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) chapter will be collecting food donations through most of the month, with the hope of supporting and meeting the physical needs of students in the district who are without food during weekends.

As with most area school districts, West County facilitates a “backpack program” to provide food and snack items for students who would otherwise go without while they aren’t at school, as West County FCA Sponsor Kristen Hart-Williams explained.

“Basically, our backpack program is a way to feed students that maybe don’t get fed during the weekend,” she said. “The school takes donations for nonperishable items that students can sort of make for themselves, like crackers, canned meat and things like that. Stuff that even small children would be able to prepare.”

West County FCA will be collecting food items through Sept. 20 to boost the district’s supply for the backpack program. The requested items include pop top canned meat, beef sticks or jerky, individual fruit cups or applesauce, cereal bars, granola bars, fruit bars, small boxes of raisins, individual dry cereals, peanut butter and crackers, cheese and crackers, individual bags of pretzels, crackers or cookies, individual drink boxes or individual bags of trail mix.

West County students can bring donated food items to Hart-Williams’ classroom at the high school. Members of the community who would like to donate can deliver the food items to the high school or elementary school offices.

Hart-Williams said this is the first year the FCA organization has collected donations for the backpack program in the nine years that she has been the organization’s sponsor, but the goal fits nicely with the overall aim of FCA.

“The whole goal of FCA is to share Christ with others,” she said. “The kids wanted to do the food drive so they could meet the needs of students in the community and to help share Christ with them.”

The Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization’s stated vision is “to see the world transformed by Jesus Christ through the influence of coaches and athletes.”

West County’s backpack program provides for students who may not have access to a nutritional diet during the weekend without school-supplied meals.

Jacob Scott is a reporter with the Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3616 or at jscott@dailyjournalonline.com.