At a lot of schools around the country, there are often food drives held for third world countries that have starving people. Also, on occasion, schools will have food drives to help the local food bank with donations.

Something that is currently being done at Pattonville is a program called Operation Backpack which collects food and gives it to a student in need within the school district.

Operation Backpack is a program at Pattonville that was created by the Student Quest Club and sponsor Ms. Twila Harris. The goal is to supply food to families in the school who don’t have food for the weekends.

It all started about three years ago when teachers were beginning to recognize that a lot of students were going without food while they weren’t at school.

“The program is completely anonymous and nobody knows who the students are that are taking the food home”, Harris said.

The group is currently able to feed about 15 students over the weekend, and because of donations, they are able to begin feeding the family as well.

The club has two drop off boxes set up in the school: One is in the AV room and the other is by the teacher mailboxes in the front office. Donations of canned foods, or even a few dollars, is appreciated.