Pokagon United Methodist Church fills 25 backpacks a week with food to feed Patrick Hamilton Elementary School students in Dowagiac during the school year.

PUMC’s backpack ministry began last spring through elementary counselor Lisa Armijo, Shari Bradke said Wednesday evening as the Youth Adventure pre-teen K-7 group demonstrates how their assembly line works for replenishing the washable blue bags, which they then pray over.

“It costs $6 a backpack,” Bradke said. “We deliver the backpacks on Friday so they can take them home” over the weekends. “They bring them back on Monday, or sometimes it’s Tuesday or Wednesday. We haven’t not gotten a backpack back yet.”

Bradke said, “We work through the counselor. She’s the one who gave us the names of the kids. There are approximately 200 kids in the Dowagiac school system who could use backpacks,” which is why PUMC plans a holiday bazaar fundraiser for the ministry Nov. 12 at Dowagiac Lions Club.

“We’re trying to contact other churches and organizations to see if they would give us donations, or if they would take on a backpack program so more kids can be fed,” said Bradke, who can be contacted at (574) 309-0260.

“This year we’ve committed to do it all year,” she said. “Our ad council, the governing body of the church, agreed to that last month. We got $1,000 from the mission committee of the United Methodist Church to continue the mission. That’s two months worth of food. We do fundraisers, take donations in the offering plate and adopt backpacks for the year. The counselor just happened to be at Patrick Hamilton when we called and she said, ‘I know 50 kids today who could use it.’ We just randomly picked 25 with no idea what to do.”

Youth Adventure gets together at the church every Wednesday evening for activities which include loading the backpacks with groceries, as well as Bible study, music, outdoor games and crafts.

“We don’t know” how the beneficiaries of their generosity react, Bradke admitted.

“We have no contact with the children at all. We’ve gotten some thank-you notes and parents have called the school and been very gracious.”

One boy who failed to return his backpack on time wanted to know if he was still eligible for food — “and he was panicked about it.”

Another regularly returned his rations of instant oatmeal.

“Sam’s Club and Aldi’s we’ve found to be the cheapest” sources of provisions. “We shop around and pick up 25 of whatever’s on sale,” Bradke related. Three-day weekends are calculated into the equation.

A full backpack consists of six meals — three each day — plus snacks and juice boxes.

“We do individual pasta meals,” she said. “Microwave macaroni and cheese. Cereal. Pop Tarts. Granola bars. Crackers and cheese. Pudding. For snacks, pretzels, chips, cookies. We try to keep it as nutritious as we can. We have done little fruit snacks. We try to get protein in. She tells us of any food allergies.”

Bradke applied to the Wal-Mart Foundation for a grant and sent information to Dowagiac churches, including contacting Area Churches Together in One Network.

“ACTION is considering it,” she said. “First Christian Church wants to be involved. We’re just trying to get the word out.”