In 2008, Monroe County was one of four counties in Kentucky to receive the Engaging Youth In Serving Communities grant. The grant challenged teens to identify a community issue and then work with adults and organizations towards developing a solution to the issue.

Seventeen teen aged youth participated in the first program. Through a community meeting attended by over 100 people, the issue of childhood hunger was identified and selected as their project. Partnering with the Family Resource Center, the youth developed a plan of action which charged them to work within the school system to identify the youth in need and to be able to deliver backpacks of non-perishable food items to the schools each week.

The teens advertised the program to local churches and civic organizations to gain help in packing the weekly backpacks and to gain financial support to purchase food items. The entire process was a lesson to the teens in that they had to think about what food items could be utilized for the project, the cost per item and per backpack, food storage and safety, and how to budget the money they had to last throughout the school year. It was also a serious time commitment for the teens because food supplies had to be purchased weekly as well as packing the backpacks for delivery to the schools.

The teens received donations of not only food supplies, but also of backpacks, a building in which to store their food items and to pack the backpacks, and weekly volunteers to help with the packing and distribution. The teens committed to five backpacks per school per week which would have been a total of twenty backpacks weekly. However, by the end of the school year, due to donations and volunteer support, the teens were able to deliver twenty-five backpacks weekly.

The impact on the youth receiving the backpacks was immediate. Along with the food items, the teens were able to send personal care items as well. This helped the youth receiving the backpacks to build self-esteem as well as being able to focus more on school work rather than on the need for those basic items that they were lacking. The teens in the program were affected by the generosity of the community in general and their willingness to be involved. They learned that when the problem is real, people are willing to help if someone will only step up to the plate and organize what needs to be done. The leadership skills developed in this program was extensive and the sense of self-fulfillment is lifelong.

Over the past eleven years, the program has grown from helping twenty-five youth weekly, to assisting 190 children each week.  During the months of September through May, youth volunteer to pick up the bags of food from the Extension Office and deliver them to each school.  Volunteers also coordinate with the schools and oversee the program.  With help from churches, private donations, local businesses, and other organizations over the past eleven years, backpacks of food have been delivered weekly to the children of Monroe County and now over $15,000 is raised annually to support the program.