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Attending one of her children's after school activities a few years ago, the Le Mars mom would often be approached by a young boy, asking her for food.
"I knew there was a need definitely in his family," Nohava said.
She brought extra snacks like protein bars to share with him.
Since then, the boy's family moved out of the community.
But Nohava knows the need is still here.
That's why she's coordinating a new food program in Le Mars that will connect children with the food they need.
"I heard about a program in Sioux City where kids were given bags of food to take home from school," Nohava said.
She did some research and found that the BackPack Program in Sioux City started out offering sacks of food to children at one school district, then expanded to include all.
"Now they give 3,500 bags of food each week," Nohava said.
Working with Linda Scheid of the Foodbank of Siouxland, Nohava started the wheels turning on a similar program in Le Mars.
Her goal for the Le Mars BackPack Program is that every elementary student in the community that qualifies for free or reduced lunch would receive a bag of food each week.
Nohava talked to principals in Le Mars who confirmed there are hungry children in their schools.
"There are signs: chronic stomach aches, being tired, chapped lips, being sick often and being absent," Nohava said.
After the Sioux City BackPack Program started, attendance at the schools increased, she added.
In Le Mars, the program is going to start Jan. 18, 2010, with qualifying elementary students at Gehlen Catholic School and Clark Elementary, which is part of Le Mars Community Schools.
There are 70 students at Gehlen and about 150 at Clark Elementary that qualify for the program. Nohava hopes to roll the program out to the other Le Mars elementaries and Kissinger Elementary in Merrill after any kinks are worked out.
Before any food packs are handed out, parents must sign permission slips and alert the program coordinators of any food allergy their child might have, Nohava said.
Once the program starts, every Friday or Thursday, qualifying students would leave their class a few minutes early at the end of the day to pick up their bag of food and put it in their backpack to take home.
"Anonymity is the most important thing to me," Nohava said. "These kids should not be exposed for any reason."
The food in the bags are chosen to help meet childhood nutritional needs and include kid-friendly, shelf stable items like trail mix bars (for protein and fiber), fruit juice with added calcium, crackers and cereal (for grains and fiber) and pudding (for calcium).
Multi-lingual informational flyers will be included for parents, directing them to available community resources as well.
The Le Mars BackPack Program coordinators will purchase the food through the Food Bank of Siouxland, which is based in Sioux City.
The food will be shipped to Le Mars and bagged for delivery.
Nohava's whole family has gotten in on the project.
Her daughter, Brandy Sanchez, is the vice-president. Her husband, Brian, renovated a large room in their business, Nohava Construction, for packing the food into bags.
The program's board members include Dave Plueger, Sanchez and Nohava.
But the Le Mars BackPack Program still needs more help.
"We need volunteers to help sack the food, deliver it to schools and hand it out at schools," Nohava said.
Packing the bags will likely happen mid-week each week, but a set time hasn't been determined yet.
Anyone interested can contact Nohava at 546-8872.
"We're banking on a lot of people to help us," Nohava said, smiling.
The program also comes with an expense -- each bag of food costs about $1.60.
Nohava estimates annual costs will run around $30,000 to keep the program going.
Tax-deductible donations can be made by writing a check to the Food Bank of Siouxland with "Le Mars BackPack Program" in the memo.
The Le Mars program hasn't received it's tax-exempt status yet, Nohava explained, adding that it usually takes six months to a year to receive it.
Checks can be mailed to the Le Mars BackPack Program, P.O. Box 308, Le Mars, Iowa, 51031.
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Great idea and program. We need more Brenda Nohava's in the world. Our government ought to be doing this, even do more, at a national level. But if the government was involved, rest assure, illegal aliens would be first in line to receive their bag of food, anything left goes to the tax paying US citizen.
This is awesome! I believe I will volunteer my help. Not to be on a political level, but I really don't care what an individual's "status" is when it comes to hunger that is awful; if an illegal came up to me and said they were hungry, I would feed them... more of a moral issue.
We do the backpack program at the school I work at! It is a great program for those who are in need. However, the only complaint from parents is that it is the same food every week and some of it is already expired. I know for some people food is food doesn't matter if it expired or not, but face it--who is going to give their child(ren) expired food. Just a F.Y.I. Very good program though!!!!!
This is a great program that has had a wonderful benefit in many communities, including where I live. Once you have the nutritional needs met and are comfortable with how it is going it would be nice to add passes to activities that the children/families might not be able to afford. I am working with our local school district to do that here. I would suggest working with the Y to see if they would give you a couple of day passes to put in the bags, or the movie theater.
Great work Brenda! Keep it up!
Jlangel: good idea! -but there is no movie theater in LeMars anymore! Just sayin'...