Chimacum Backpacks for Kids
Project: Weekend meals for food-insecure students
Request: $5,500
Chimacum Backpacks for Kids sends food home with children who might not otherwise have enough to eat between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.
The majority of students in the Chimacum School District rely on free and reduced-price school meals for their daily nutrition during the week. That program stops at the school door on Friday. Backpacks for Kids picks it up from there. In the 2025/26 school year, volunteers packed a record 4,757 bags, providing a weekend bag to approximately 144 children each week, across the primary, elementary, middle and high schools.
Each bag costs roughly $13 and contains two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners, snacks and beverages.
Here are the problems you can help solve
Two things are squeezing this program at once.
First, demand is climbing. District enrollment has held steady, but requests for weekend bags have increased every year. More families are finding it difficult to put adequate meals on the table as food costs rise.
Second, rising costs are hitting the most important foods hardest. If funding falls short, the program says the first items to go would be the more costly, high-protein foods; precisely the ones that make a bag nourishing rather than merely filling.
What your donation makes possible
$5,500 packs 141 weekend bags for three weeks. Scaled across the year, the program's budget runs about $65,000 for food, bags, supplies and outreach, supported by community donations, local businesses, neighborhood fundraisers in Port Ludlow, and annual support from local banks, churches, clubs and businesses.
The bottom line
Chimacum counselors, teachers and the superintendent consistently report that children who have been adequately fed over the weekend come back noticeably more alert and ready to learn. Parents describe what it means to stop worrying about Saturday. And graduates have told the program directly that they probably would not have stayed in school without it.
Your gift buys groceries. What it delivers is a Monday morning where a kid can concentrate.
