Wildbird Charity’s weekend food program begins its second year

As of September 20, Wildbird Charity’s Starfish Weekend Food Program officially began its second year.

The local charity provides kids with a bag of food to take home on weekends, containing two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners and snacks.

“I know, as a retired school principal, that kids coming to school hungry affects not only their academic performance but also their overall mental health, their attitude towards other children and their ability to cope,” Wildbird Charity administrator Phill Esau said.

Allowances are made for three-day weekends and hungrier teenagers, and Esau estimates an average bag costs approximately $8.50 to compile. Foods in the bag must be lightweight, nutritious, easy to prepare and kid-friendly. Some examples include chicken noodle soup, oatmeal, nut-free nutrition bars and fresh fruit.

Initially, the program supplied kids with backpacks to take home, but Esau said zippers break, straps loosen and they were costly to replace. Now food is given to kids on Friday afternoons in reusable bags.

The program primarily operates during the school year but served a dozen families during the summer.

This school year, Wildbird has the funds to supply weekend food bags for 33 of the 100 kids identified by the Blaine school district as being in need of food security. The school-based program works with teachers, counselors and nurses, who keep track of kids who may be in need of Wildbird’s food program.

Forty-seven percent of kids in the Blaine school district qualified for free and reduced lunches for the 2018-2019 school year, indicating a need for food security at home.

“Wildbird has been a huge asset for us,” Blaine school district family support worker Jessie Burton said. “We didn’t really have programs like these before. Wildbird has really stepped up and helped.”

The program depends on food donations from the Blaine Food Bank and private monetary donations. Volunteers from Christ the King Church pack the bags each week.

“Once you start feeding a child, you never want to say, ‘Sorry, we ran out of money’ or ‘Sorry, we couldn’t pack this week because we couldn’t get enough volunteers,’” Esau said. “It needs to be reliable. Even on long weekends, we try to pack for three days.”

Local businesses can donate money or food to help the Starfish Weekend Food Program. Esau hopes to receive the help of corporate sponsors for the program.

Esau emphasized that 100 percent of monetary donations go towards buying food, and none towards the administration of Wildbird Charity. For $450 ($37.50 per month), one child can be fed on weekends for the whole school year.

“People are usually pretty passionate about feeding kids in their own backyard,” Esau said. “The biggest share of funds comes through private donations.”

If you wish to make a donation to Wildbird’s food program, Esau recommends donating through the website wildbirdcharity.org or at the Blaine Food Bank, where a specific donation can be set aside for the food bag program.

“We’d really like to grow the program, so that means donations either to us as a charity or to the food bank designated for the program,” Esau said. “It’s crucial now, because we need to keep buying inventory, as does the food bank.”