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Backpack Buddies is a Five-Star, Top 100 Charity
You can read our full report on Charity Intelligence.
Our Vision
No child in BC is hungry.
Our Mission
Our mission is to ensure food security for every vulnerable child in British Columbia.
Where It All Began
Since Day One, Our Focus Has Always Been to Feed Hungry Kids
In 2012, mother-daughter duo, Joanne and Emily-anne were confronted with the reality of childhood hunger in their own community. In particular, they learned about the “weekend hunger gap” — when kids who normally rely on school-day meal programs suffer in silence over the weekends when meal support is scarce.
Joanne and Emily-anne engaged local schools, donors, and volunteers. In September 2012, Backpack Buddies made its first delivery of 20 bags of food to hungry children at a school in East Vancouver.
Today, our team at Backpack Buddies supports over 6,000 hungry children every week by collaborating with educators, administrators, social workers and other non-profits. In 2023/24 school year, we delivered over 1.65 million meals to children in 73 communities across BC.
Our Vision
No child in BC is hungry.
Our Mission
Our mission is to ensure food security for every vulnerable child in British Columbia.
Our Co-Founders
Co-Founder and Executive Director
After years of working in the for-profit sector, Emily-anne made the switch to the charitable sector and founded Backpack Buddies in 2012 with her mom, Joanne. Backpack Buddies started off with the duo dropping off bags of food every Friday to a dozen students at an East Vancouver elementary school. Today, Emily-anne leads a team that reaches over 5,000 hungry children every week across BC. Emily-anne believes that every child should know where their next meal will come from and passionately engages donors, volunteers and other champions to join the cause. Together with the Backpack Buddies team, she is passionate about serving local communities and believes we can all make an impact in the neighbourhood we live in. Emily-anne and her husband are parents to two little kids and call North Vancouver home.
Co-Founder and Director of Strategic Partnerships
Joanne has devoted her life to the betterment of children’s lives. She has been involved in community projects most of her professional career and is a founding member of Canuck Place Children’s Hospice. In 2012, Joanne and her daughter, Emily-anne, discovered the need of children from inner-city schools for food on weekends. Joanne recruited the school that her children had attended in West Vancouver to help fundraise and pack Backpack Buddies’ first 20 bags of food in the spring of 2012. Joanne’s passion is her children and grandchildren. She enjoys spending time outside with them.
There are Hungry Kids in Every Community
Every BC community – even the ones you’d least expect – has children who are hungry. And in some neighborhoods, the situation is far more dire than others.
These 13 areas have neighborhoods with the highest poverty levels in BC. Backpack Buddies is stepping into help: our program is now offered in 10 of these areas and we are extending our support to more kids each year.
Backpack Buddies Operates Here
- Central Saanich
- Chilliwack
- Metchosin
- Nanaimo
- North Shore
- Northern Vancouver Island
- Prince George
- Richmond
- Vancouver
- Victoria
Not Yet Operating
- Central Coast
- Kamloops
- Kelowna
The Weekend Hunger Gap
Hunger Doesn’t take the weekend off
Children in food-insecure households often do not eat properly, or at all, on weekends. Consistent hunger, even just over the weekend, can set a child back for life. Children from food insecure households…
- Are two to four times more likely to have poorer health or a diagnosed chronic condition as they face long-term health challenges.
- Exhibit higher rates of behavioural problems and psychosocial deficits, and higher levels of anxiety and depression.
- Experience developmental impairments in areas of language and motor skills and are more likely to repeat a grade.
- Are more likely to be overweight due to poor diet and overeating due to the unpredictability of food.
Resources on Child Poverty & Food Insecurity in BC
In the News
Backpack Buddies passionately raises awareness of child hunger while rallying the public to join our cause. Here’s our most recent media coverage featuring our fight against food insecurity.
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Demand keeps growing for charity that helps feed hungry B.C. kids
Read the ArticleThese days we’re all feeling it. The absolute sticker shock at the checkout when we are “running in for a few things.” Just the basics are adding up, let alone anything special for the holidays.
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Backpack Buddies is a Five-Star, Top 100 Charity
Read the ArticleYou can read our full report on Charity Intelligence.
Meet Francis
For the past few years, Francis has been scared to open her fridge. Struggling to make ends meet, the single-mom of 4-year-old Elizabeth was never sure if there would be enough for her daughter to eat. Then she was connected to Backpack Buddies – a constant the family came to depend on in a season of uncertainty.
“Not being able to feed your child is one of the worst feelings in the world. When she is hungry and there is nothing in the cupboards…when I don’t have any money to go shopping…It’s the worst. The consistency of the food every week from Backpack Buddies is a godsend. ”
Frequently Asked Questions
Explore a few of our frequently asked questions to learn more about Backpack Buddies and how we feed hungry kids across BC.
Many children who come from food-insecure homes rely heavily on school meal programs. However, over the weekend these children may not eat at all until school starts again on Monday. This is what we call the “weekend hunger gap.”
Backpack Buddies addresses this crisis by providing kids with bags of kid-approved meals and snacks every Friday to last them the weekend.
One bag of food includes meal items, fresh fruit, veggies and snacks. There is enough food to last the entire weekend. We work hard to ensure that most items in our bags are ready-to-eat, are largely non-perishable in case a child doesn’t have access to refrigeration, and are familiar to kids.
It costs $25 to fill a bag, though it is provided at no cost to the school and student. Each bag contains enough meal items plus fresh fruit, veggies and snacks to last a child the entire weekend.
The majority of the food we provide in our bags is purchased from our food partners Save-On Foods and Sysco. We use our strong buying power to purchase the food at cost or less. We supplement this by purchasing through food rescue companies such as FoodMesh. We also have wonderful supplier partnerships with companies like FreeYumm, who contribute in-kind donations to our program.
We pack our food in reusable, non-branded, non-woven fiber bags every Friday before they go home. These bags are unlabeled so we can provide support discretely to kids.
- We believe its is possible for every child in BC to have enough food to eat.
- We believe that when we promise to provide food for a child, they can count on us for as long as the need us.
These two principles guide the use of every dollar we raise. It means that we manage every dollar with great care. We invest in the health of our organization so that good people stay with us for the long term and we have a stable organization that families can count on to be here for years to come. It means that we invest in fundraising and the care of our donors so that we can continually grow to reach more and more children. We make sure to speak for children that cannot speak for themselves, encouraging governments, large companies, and our communities to support the most vulnerable children. It means we must keep reserve funds on hand so that we can keep our promise to children to support them, as long as they need us, no matter what unexpected financial storms arise. We make sure that every dollar provides food security for children in our program today and helps us reach more children across BC every year.
We make sure every dollar helps to get food into the hands of BC’s most vulnerable children. When you make a $25 donation to Backpack Buddies:
- $13.47 pays for food
- 7.35 pays for the warehouse, vehicles, and people that get the food into the hands of children
- $3.17 helps to raise more money so we can help even more children
- $1 makes sure we fulfill our responsibilities like providing tax receipts and managing our finances properly
We make sure that every dollar provides food security for children in our program today and helps us reach more children across BC every year.
* Based on our 2023/24 financial statements
Families, companies, foundations, and government have stepped up to help vulnerable children have enough to eat. We are grateful for all our generous supporters.
- 67% of our funding comes from individuals and companies
- 33% of our funding comes from grants
* Based on our 2023/24 financial statements
Children in the Backpack Buddies program live in food-insecure families – they do not have enough food to eat and struggle with the devastating and lifelong impacts of hunger and nutritional deprivation. When Backpack Buddies steps in, we offer our promise that we will be there for them, providing a source of food every weekend that they can count on as long as they need us. Keeping this promise means establishing financial stability in our organization to weather financial fluctuations that could otherwise threaten our ability to support children counting on us.
Our goal is to hold a cash reserve equivalent to 12 months of the cost of food for our program and 6 months of operating expenses, ensuring that children in our program will not be affected by fluctuations in donations from month to month.
Today, there are nearly 160,000 children in BC who are going hungry. One day, we hope to be able help them all.