Plastic Bags Needed

The Penn Yan Food For the Needy program is in need of donated, used-but-clean plastic grocery bags for the Backpack Program. They are using 450 plastic bags each week – and so any contribution would be appreciated.

If you bring/send the plastic bags to the Yates County Office for the Aging, they’ll make sure they make their way over to the Food Pantry and Backpack program. If you want to be super helpful, please place them flat in a bag with all handles going in the same direction.

Also, if you know of any unwanted/unused supplies of plastic bags (so perhaps old promotional items), please send those along too!

Many thanks!

Katie Smeenk
Director, Pro Action Yates Aging and Youth Services
ProAction of Steuben and Yates, Inc.
417 Liberty Street
Penn Yan, NY 14527

Phone: (315) 536-5515

UPDATE:

What is the Backpack program?

The Backpack Program is a weekend food program developed and operated Food for the Needy in Penn Yan (a food pantry). They have just added Dundee Central School students and have about 450 students in the Penn Yan and Dundee elementary and middle schools receiving food each week. The food is purchased and packed by volunteers. Items included in the weekly food pack are nutritious foods like oatmeal, cereal bars, peanut butter, tuna fish, juice boxes etc. and is designed to feed a young student for several meals during the weekend. The maximum weight of the bag of feed is 3 lbs or less so that elementary school children can carry it easily. Families complete an application to enroll their child in the program, but applications are screened and kept by the schools. Only the names and grade level of the children are given to the Backpack Program.
Here is an excerpt from the Food Bank of the Southern Tier’s Annual Report about their back pack program:

The BackPack Program™ fills the gap over weekends and school breaks when children cannot access free and reduced price school meals. Many teachers canattest to children who resist going home on Friday, or who complain of illnesses each Monday morning. This program provides a bag of nutritious food items each Friday to children who exhibit signs of chronic hunger.

Thanks again for your great response! It is so appreciated!