Backpack Club Helps Feed Hungry Oklahoma Kids

Ten-year-old Stevie and 9-year-old Emily love going to school at Lee Elementary. In a home with seven kids, food is sometimes hard to come by.

"When we're hungry and we don't have a lot of food at the house, we can eat some of the backpack club food," Stevie said.

Stevie and Emily are members of the backpack club. Every Friday during the school year, they take home one of these backpacks from the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma's Food for Kids Program. They're stocked with snacks to tide them over between meals and on weekends. Snacks we may take for granted, but to Stevie and Emily's dad, they're a luxury.

"I went hungry in school a lot," Stephen Strawn remembered. "There was a lot of times I didn't get breakfast and I know my kids are well fed. They're not thinking about being hungry. They're learning."

"It makes me feel good because it makes me feel like somebody actually cares," Stevie said.

"It makes me feel special," Emily said.

More than 15,000 chronically hungry elementary school students in Oklahoma are on the backpack program and more are in need. That's where you come in. It costs $200 to feed one child for the entire school year and every dollar counts.

Learn more about News 9's Food For Kids program