B.C. has one of the highest child poverty rates in the country. Well over 150,000 children in the province experience food insecurity. And of course, growing children need nutritious food to stay healthy. Food which, for families living in poverty, is largely out of reach. Schools in B.C. offer breakfast and lunch programs, but what happens at the end of the school week? 

Backpack Buddies was founded in 2012 by Emily-anne King and her mother after visiting a school in the Downtown Eastside. The two asked an outreach worker, “what would be one wish for your students and her response to us? Send them home on Friday with food.”

The organization purchases fresh, nutritious food and packages enough to last the weekend. The food is then delivered to schools and community centres across the province. 

When schools closed last year during the pandemic, Backpack Buddies had to completely rethink how to organize its distribution, and while schools have now reopened, it’s clear the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on children and families, “you know, the psychological effects, the effects of long-term hunger on children that, may have experienced food insecurity for the first time due to COVID, there is going to be ramifications for, for a very, very long time.”

Listen to Emily-anne King in conversation with reporter James Mainguy.