Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 54F. Winds light and variable..

Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 54F. Winds light and variable.

Volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 3 of the Shenango Valley, along with other community volunteers, load bags with food earlier this year at the Community Food Warehouse of Mercer County, for the Sharon City School District’s BackPack program.

Volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 3 of the Shenango Valley, along with other community volunteers, load bags with food earlier this year at the Community Food Warehouse of Mercer County, for the Sharon City School District's BackPack program.

Volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 3 of the Shenango Valley, along with other community volunteers, load bags with food earlier this year at the Community Food Warehouse of Mercer County, for the Sharon City School District's BackPack program.

Volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 3 of the Shenango Valley, along with other community volunteers, load bags with food earlier this year at the Community Food Warehouse of Mercer County, for the Sharon City School District’s BackPack program.

SHARON — Although children in needy families can rely on schools for breakfast and lunch, they may go hungry when they’re at home. A recent donation will help keep those children fed.

To meet that need, the charitable organization Sheetz For The Kidz donated $7,500 to the Community Food Warehouse of Mercer County. The funds will go toward the warehouse’s BackPack program.

“We are grateful to be selected as a recipient of the Sheetz For The Kidz grant again this year, as 18.9 percent of children in Mercer County live in food-insecure households,” food warehouse Executive Director Rebecca Page said in a press release.

The food warehouse’s BackPack program provides weekend bags of food to 10 school districts in Mercer County.

For some school districts, different groups of volunteers load bags of food at the warehouse. Other districts have the food delivered to the schools twice a year and prepared on-site, food warehouse Development Manager Sarah Worthington said.

The food is then placed in students’ backpacks on Friday, so that needy students will have at least two meals to feed them through the weekend.

More than 900 children in elementary and middle school are served through the 10 participating school districts, Worthington said.

“Schools can step in and provide free breakfast and free lunch, or at least at a reduced cost, but for some kids, they may not eat again until they come back to school on Monday,” she said.

Each bag contains a variety of food that is both child-friendly and nutritious, such as cereal, Chef Boyardee products, Nutri-Grain bars, graham crackers and different juices.

Last year’s grant from Sheetz For The Kidz was able to buy about 31,000 fruit juice boxes that could be given to the students. This year’s grant will likely go toward juice boxes again when school starts in the fall, Worthington said.

Aside from the monetary donation, Sheetz’s “Made To Share” program will rescue food from its 600 convenience stores and donating it to Feeding America member food banks within their six-state footprint, the press release states.

“Sheetz For The Kidz is a proud support of the Feeding America network of food banks’ child hunger programs,” Brittany Funcheon, the executive director of Sheetz For The Kidz, said in the release. “This year, with our donation, we will support local food banks’ Kid’s Cafes, BackPack Programs and Mobile pantries.”

Like David L. Dye on Facebook or email him at .

Like David L. Dye on Facebook or email him at ddye@sharonherald.com .

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.

To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.

Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox.

First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.