On Friday afternoons, as the Farmington R-7 buses pull away, most children are already dreaming of sleepovers, family dinners, or lazy weekends at home. But for nearly 200 students in the Farmington School District, the weekend doesn’t promise joy. It promises hunger. These are the children who wonder if there will be anything to eat before Monday morning, who count the hours until school reopens -- not for academics, but for breakfast.
The Farmington CTA Cares Backpack Program was built for those children—for the ones whose need is often invisible, whose stories are rarely told. What began years ago with one man’s vision is today a quiet, steadfast promise: no child should ever face a weekend without food.
CTA president Sheri Whitener has seen the need firsthand. Entering her third year as president, she and her team of board members have worked tirelessly to ensure students are not forgotten, especially those in middle and high school who often slip through the cracks. Their mission is as straightforward as it is profound: to provide as much as they can, for as many as they can.
Each week begins the same way. On Monday evenings, Chrissy and Perry Cooper deliver boxes of food to the schools, stocking the shelves so staff can pack bags throughout the week. What once was handled by Dayse Baker students has now shifted to each building, allowing teachers and staff to prepare bags directly for their own students. It's quiet work, unnoticed by most, but for the children who will carry those bags home on Friday, it means everything.
Right now, 197 children receive these bags. Some belong to families fighting to get back on their feet. Some belong to children who don’t even realize the bag they carry home means survival for the weekend.
The reality is sobering: food insecurity within our community does not wear a single face. It is not just families in poverty. It is also the middle-class neighbor who never imagined needing help, and the hardworking parent whose paycheck runs dry before the month does. “Our students don’t even realize their classmates may be in this position,” she says.
Keeping the shelves filled requires endless creativity. Businesses host drives and fundraisers, churches step in with donations, and schools collect what they can. And still, the need outpaces the resources. The greatest challenge remains not only finding enough food, but finding food that is healthy, shelf-stable, and individually packaged.
The holidays are especially heavy. During Christmas and spring break, the program builds larger bags—bags intended to last every single day away from school. Volunteers know those bags may be the only meals a child eats until school starts again.
And yet, despite the constant struggle, gratitude shines through every corner of this story. Gratitude for the businesses who give, for the churches who rally, for the volunteers who spend Monday nights hauling boxes, and for the teachers and counselors—the boots on the ground—who see the need and quietly make the referrals. It is the Parkland community at its very best, working hand in hand to meet a need that could easily be overlooked.
The CTA Cares Backpack Program is not just about food. It is about dignity and compassion in action. “The hope is that one day, this program will be so sustainable we won’t have to ask who can help or if we have enough. We’ll just know every child in need will be cared for.”
This Thanksgiving season, may we pause not just to be thankful for the food on our own tables, but to consider the child down the street who might not have any. May we choose to give in whatever way we can—donating, volunteering, advocating—so that no student ever has to go to bed hungry. Every can, every dollar, and every bag packed is proof of what it means to love our neighbors.
And every Friday afternoon, when a child quietly carries home a bag of food, that proof goes with them.
"The generosity of strangers becomes the nourishment a child carries home."