Photo: Darrren Stone, Times Colonist

Anne Batey, front, and members of the Order of St. John package food two years ago at a warehouse used by Backpack Buddies, which provides food for kids on weekends when school food programs aren’t available.

After more than a dozen years, a B.C. agency that provides food to youth in need to ensure they eat on weekends — when school food programs are not running — continues to grow as more and more young people require their services.

Backpack Buddies was started in 2012 by the mother-daughter team of Joanne Griffiths and Emily-anne King in response to what they call the “weekend hunger gap,” because many youth who rely on school food sources have little to eat at home.

It all started with a conversation with an outreach worker at an East Vancouver school, King said.

“Essentially we asked her: ‘If you could wave a magic wand, what would you wish for for your students?’ and she said her wish would be to send them home on Friday with food for the weekend.”

That led to “the proverbial light-bulb moment” with the realization that access to food for some children was largely confined to school breakfast and lunch programs on weekdays, King said.

Through Backpack Buddies, bags of food are delivered every Friday to students who are discreetly identified by teachers and administrators.

The program, which started in the fall of 2012 supporting 20 kids a week in that first school, is now the largest weekend food program in the province, supporting 6,000 youth a week and operating at 380 schools, King said.

“There really is not a lot of agencies focusing on this particular need.”

There is a steadily increasing wait list for Backpack Buddies’ services — now estimated to be about 2,000 children.

About half the schools waiting to join are on Vancouver Island, where the group has been active since 2019.

By 2023, Backpack Buddies was in 115 Island schools from Victoria to Port Hardy.

The group received a $30,000 grant last year for its Island work from the provincial government’s Community Prosperity Fund via the Victoria Foundation’s Community Grants Program.

King said the group needs long-term, sustainable support as fundraising efforts have a hard time keeping up with rising food costs.

“We are coming up against the same pressures that families are facing and that are driving more people into food insecurity.”

Like many other charities, Backpack Buddies relies on foundations, corporations and individual donors for funding, and is grateful for ongoing support from the Victoria Foundation, King said.

“We turn that into food and into support almost overnight.”

With help from grocery suppliers and food-rescue organizations, more than 1.65 million meals are given out annually through the program in 73 communities around B.C., after being packed in warehouses in North Vancouver and Victoria.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are an important part of the provisions, including apples and cucumbers as well as other food items that last outside of a fridge.

“[We] will continue to do the work until hopefully one day it’s not needed,” King said.