"Backpack for Hunger" Effort at Kirkland School Helping Homeless Kids, Families

Editor’s Note: This is the final story in a special report about homeless students in the Lake Washington School District. Patch partnered with Investigate West for this report. Today we learn about one school's approach to helping students in need. Yesterday, we looked at the growing number of homeless students in the district, and the psychological effects homelessness has on students.

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Watching an elementary student leaving school on a Friday afternoon with a backpack full of food for his or her hungry family is a pretty powerful sight.

“It’s just marvelous when I see kids leaving with those backpacks,” says Concha Lapuente, a counselor at  in Kirkland’s Juanita neighborhood. “I think, look at that! Look at us! It feels so good to do stuff.”

For the second year in a row, Keller staff, parents, neighbors and other volunteers have been operating a free “Backpack for Hunger” program. It’s one way that counselors, teachers and other Lake Washington School District staff, along with parents and civic groups, are helping an increasing number of homeless students and other kids from Kirkland families in need.

“Some of my homeless students are part of the program,” says Lapuente. “I’m not going to send a kid to a hotel room with no food. We worry about kids going hungry on the weekend. I think, what happens to these kids on the weekend? Do they have cereal or nothing at all?”

It is a volunteer program, supported by the Helen Keller PTA, civic groups such as the Kirkland Kiwanis club and students from neighboring junior highs and high schools. They launch food drives and fundraisers, collect the food, load the backpacks and even deliver them to the younger elementary students at the end of the school day.

As the number of homeless students has increased in the Lake Washington School District--from 119 students during the 2009-10 school year to 177 this school year--so has the Backpack for Hunger program grown.

The program began last school year as the idea of a neighborhood volunteer, Chris Pederson, with 12 students participating. This school year the program is serving 25 students. Lapuente figures it is helping to feed more than 50 kids, counting siblings and “blended” families, such as friends or relatives sharing their homes.

“That’s a lot,” she says. “We also feed breakfast to kids in need here. I have had kids with the backpacks for two years. Some are for a few months. They tell me, “We don’t need this backpack anymore.’”

Kids who are homeless or might benefit from the program simply from economic need are identified in various ways. 

“Regularly I know about the kids before the teacher,” Lapuente says. “Sometimes the secretary tells me when she registers them. But sometimes a teacher says, ‘This student seems a little restless.’ Maybe somebody says, ‘This kid is acting different,’ and I reach out to the parents.”

All a parent needs to do to participate is say they could use the help.

“I’m not checking salaries or anything like that. If a parent says they need food for their kid, I believe them. That’s pretty basic.”

Because the program continues to grow, so has the need for help to support it.

“I think it has been very successful, and it needs to be a team effort,” says Lapuente. “We need people to pack the bags, fix the pantry, do the food drives. We need donations.”

The program is anonymous and open to all. If you need to participate or know someone who could use the help, see the Keller PTA web pages here. You can find information on helping out or making donations there as well, or by contacting Lapuente at 425-936-2580; clapuente@lwsd.org.