Durham students take food home

Backpacks filled to help families

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CORRECTION

A story in the City & State section Wednesday about Durham students taking home backpacks of food incorrectly identified the organization that contributed the food. It is the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina.

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DURHAM -- Her backpack might weigh 10 pounds, but even with her tiny 6-year-old frame, you won't hear Maria Herazo complaining about having to lug the bag home.

She and her family might need the food inside to make it through the weekend.

Each week, Maria, her brother Jose, and more than 70 other students at Eastway Elementary School take food home to their families, "because we need it," said Maria Perez, Jose and Maria's mother.

At Eastway, where more than 96 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch, a weekend away from school might mean children return Monday fixated on their grumbling tummies instead of learning.

So on Thursdays, volunteers visit a local food bank, pick up about $200 in food and fill more than 70 backpacks with everything from cans of franks and beans to pasta.

The students who receive the food get their "food backpacks" after applying for the program at the beginning of the year. They return the bags each week for a refill.

There has long been a need for this type of help for Eastway families, said Principal Star Sampson, but money has not been available.

Last year, the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina received a $50,000 grant from international corporation Bayer CropScience, said J. Caprice Brown, a programs manager for the food bank.

With the grant, the food bank started the "food backpack" program at schools in Durham, Moore, Franklin and Wake counties, the first being Hodge Road Elementary School in Raleigh, Brown said. So far, the program has helped distribute more than $7,500 in food in Durham.

Children at Eastway started getting the supplements last spring, but the program really got rolling later this year, said Bud Reiter-Lavery, executive director of Communities in Schools of Durham. His organization coordinates the food bank and volunteers.

On a recent Thursday, Reiter-Lavery and a dozen volunteers carted flats of canned food to Eastway and formed an assembly line in the cafeteria to fill the bags.

The students watched curiously, one boy whispering to a classmate, "Ooh, there's my food," as a cart of backpacks rolled by. Though volunteers deliver the bags Thursdays, students have to wait until the final bell Friday to receive their packages.

Many families have more than one child who brings home food, including Maria and Jose Herazo.

They live with their stay-at-home mom and their father, a roofer, in a small rental house within walking distance from the school on Alston Avenue.

Rusting paint cans and empty 5-gallon drums sit on the front porch as makeshift planters.

Jose and Maria have a younger sister, Isabel, 4, who will attend Eastway next year.

Often, when Jose brings his backpack home Fridays, rosy-cheeked Isabel is eager to check out the delivery, especially if it includes fruit snacks shaped like SpongeBob SquarePants, he said.

"Sometimes, when we get the gummy SpongeBobs, she always goes into the backpack and gets them," Jose said.

Their mother said she would never let her children starve, even if she didn't have the extra food coming in each week to feed her family of five, plus other relatives who sometimes stay at the house.

But having help does mean she and her husband won't have to choose between paying bills or buying their growing children winter coats that fit.

"Sometimes we can't get the things they need," Maria Perez said through an interpreter.

Brown, Reiter-Lavery and Eastway's principal Sampson say they hear regularly from parents who say they see a change in their children, including better academic performance.

Sampson gets a reminder almost every day, when she sees Maria Perez picking up her children at Eastway.

"I see her all the time. She's always at the school, and she's my PTA vice president," Sampson said of Perez. "I know she appreciates the support."