Idaho Falls School District 91 has started a pilot program aimed at giving their underprivileged students a nutritious meal over the weekend when they may have to go without.  The school says about 35 of their students are participating in the program.  The backpack program, as it's called has been around for years, which is part of the Idaho Food Bank.

Since January an Idaho Food Bank truck pulls up to Dora Erickson Elementary School every month and unloads hundreds of bags of food, but the food isn't for the cafeteria rather to put food in the stomachs of the school's underprivileged children.

Bruce Cook, Principal, Dora Erickson Elementary: "When they're hungry they can open up their backpack, pull out a ready-made snack and eat that."

Jolene Eborn helped spearhead the backpack program at Dora Erickson.

Jolene Eborn, Volunteer: "It is a big need in Idaho. I was very naive to think that we don't that in Idaho Falls."

Dora Erickson is one of about one hundred schools statewide that participates in the food bank's Backpack Program. The program sends food home with chronically hungry students over the weekend to make sure they've got something to eat.

Bruce Cook, Principal, Dora Erickson Elementary: "A lot of our children when they come to school, they eat breakfast here, they eat lunch here and they don't eat much more until they come back the next morning for breakfast here."

The Backpack Program is currently a pilot program and has the possibility of going to other schools in the district. the only problem--funding.  It costs about $250 dollars per student, per year, but for the students that are being helped it's a welcome and needed edition to the school.

Jolene Eborn, Volunteer: "The kids that need it are in serious need.   We're talking rationing food at home. There's a need."

District 25 in Pocatello also participates in the program. About 15 of their schools use the backpack program. If you'd like to help out the program you can make donations to the Idaho Food Bank which has a satellite office in Pocatello.