31 Backpacks needs your help

HANCOCK — For many children in the Copper Country, the meal they get at school is the only one they get for the day.

So when there is no school, such as on weekends and holidays, those children simply go hungry. With nine days off coming up for Spring Break, 31 Backpacks is preparing bags of food and household items for approximately 180 students to help get them through until they return to school.

31 Backpacks Co–Founder Melissa Maki said, “If you can imagine going two days without food, it is just miserable and to be without food for nine days, I just can’t even imagine being in that situation.”

Each child will get five 13–gallon bags of food to take home with them on Friday.

Maki said, “We’re thrilled with the amount of children that we’ve been able to reach out and help. We’re also shocked with the number of children we’re been able to reach out and help. We often talk about if we had known that we’d be exceeding 180 kids, it might not have ever got off the ground. But we started small, got comfortable and then expanded over and over again. And we now reach every school district in Houghton and Keweenaw County.”

31 Backpacks is a non–profit 501C–3 organization and is run by all volunteers. But they really need your help.

Volunteers are asked to come to the Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church in Hancock Thursday at 5:30pm. to help stuff these bags. Though this program is for children, they ask if you come to help out, please leave the children at home.