Flat Rock Backpack Program

We Feed Hungry School Kids!

The Flat Rock Backpack Program was started in 2008, when it was brought to the attention of parishioners at St. John in the Wilderness that there were children in Henderson County who did not have sufficient food in their homes over the weekend. In December of that year, we began packing food in typical backpacks for 8 children at Flat Rock Middle school with our food coming from donations. We had 6-8 volunteers. In January 2009, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hendersonville asked to join with us. They were serving 50 students at Upward Elementary school. By this time, we needed to purchase in quantity. Grants, donations, and memorials were the funding sources. We now had more volunteers.

Our mission is to combat childhood hunger right here in our community by providing supplemental food for children on the free and reduced lunch program so that they don't go hungry on weekends during the schoolyear. We make sure that each child has food for three dinners, two lunches, two breakfasts, and two snacks on a regular weekend. On long weekends and vacations, we add more. Each year we provide over 5,000 bags of food. Our core bag of food comes from MANNA Feed the Kids Program, with supplemental food purchased by our program.

We currently serve eight area schools, from daycare to high school. We are a totally volunteer group, from meeting the MANNA truck, to shopping, packing, and delivering to the schools. We rely on funds from the Outreach Committee and Episcopal Church Women of St. John in the Wilderness, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Ladies Aid Society, grants such as the Human Hurt and Hope Fund, private donations, and our biggest fundraiser of the year: the Empty Bowls Event.

Our team welcomes all interested people to join us on Thursday mornings at Hubba Hubba Smokehouse to pack during the school year. You may also support us by donating at any time! All donations are tax deductible.