Marshfield Medical Center-Minocqua supported the Home in a Backpack program with an investment of $500 to support children who are food insecure by providing nutritional food outside of school hours. 

Backpack food programs help to provide nutritious, non-perishable, easy-to-prepare food to children to ensure kids have enough nutritious food on weekends and holidays, helping to avoid hunger when kids can’t depend on school meals. In the Minocqua region, the program serves the four local elementary school districts. Over the last year, this program has served approximately 71 families and 176 children through the 2021-2022 school year. The program has had so much success that two of these schools offer this program during the summer months. MMC-Minocqua’s donation purchased non-perishable food items for breakfast, lunches, snacks and backpacks to help distribute the food items. 

Volunteers help to pack the backpacks, distribute them to the local school districts, and then teachers distribute the backpacks for the children to bring home. The children bring the backpack back to school to be filled again for the following week. The program is made possible through the collective efforts of local area organizations in the local community.