PORT ANGELES — For many students, spring break means a week of rest and relaxation and no homework.
For others, being out of school this week means not knowing where your next meal will come from.
To help students on the free and reduced lunch program bridge the gap, the Port Angeles Food Bank has provided 120 “Break Bags” to families that signed up for supplemental groceries.
“This is a huge thing for some of these families,” said Patsene Dashiell, Port Angeles School District spokeswoman.
The spring break distribution is a spin-off of the Friday Food Bag program, which supplies weekly groceries to more than 500 Port Angeles School District students and 30 Crescent School District students throughout the school year.
“This is sort of like Friday Food Bags on steroids,” said Fran Howell, Port Angeles Food Bank board member, while helping Kiwanis Club volunteers stuff the Break Bags on Thursday.
“We really are trying to pump it up, because it’s got to last a week. There are kids who would go hungry without school lunch programs or access to the Friday Food Bags.”
Each Break Bag contains dry beans, canned fruit, canned tomatoes, soup, spaghetti, peanut butter, ham, tuna, macaroni and cheese, granola bars, mustard and mayonnaise, fresh carrots, potatoes, milk, eggs, a pound of hamburger and a large head of lettuce.
“It’s a big bag,” Dashiell said. “This is more than a child could carry home on a Friday.”
The Break Bags were distributed to families at the food bank or at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Port Angeles.
The Port Angeles Food Bank leveraged its bulk purchasing power to secure the groceries at a cost of about $18 per bag, Executive Director Jessica Hernandez said.
The food bank held a fundraiser for the Break Bags and received outside support from Umpqua and Wells Fargo banks, Port Angeles Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, Safeway and the Port Angeles School District.
Hernandez said she learned about the spring break food distribution program at a Northwest Harvest event in Kitsap County two years ago.
The Port Angeles Food Bank is the first in Clallam County to provide Break Bags for spring break.
“I’m excited, and I’m hoping it grows in the coming years,” Hernandez said in a Friday interview.
Officials with the Port Angeles Food Bank and School District plan to expand the program to the two-week holiday break in December.
Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula offer food assistance for youth during the summer.
Students who have access to proper nutrition on spring break are “less likely to have behavioral problems, less likely to be absent and are more likely to be engaged” when class resumes, Hernandez said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
