They will not be able to do that during the upcoming school year.

Backpack Buddies has come to an end because of a lack of money, according to Dr. Terry Moehnke, who started the program in 2010.

“We have lost most of our funding,” he said Monday. “Our big donors are not stepping up.”

“Our donations have basically vaporized since COVID,” he added.

It costs about $85,000 a year to run the program, according to Moehnke.

He launched Backpack Buddies as a project of the Fort Dodge Noon Sertoma Club. The club recently voted to end the project because of the lack of money.

“It was a tough decision,” he said.

Moehnke said any remaining money in the Backpack Buddies account will be given to the Fort Dodge Community School District for its food pantries, according to Moehnke. Club representatives will be meeting with district officials soon to discuss that transfer.

The program provided 650 bags of food a week for 10 years. It was called Backpack Buddies because initially the food was loaded into student backpacks. But more recently, it was just placed in plastic bags.

For several years, those bags have been filled by inmates at the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility.

Moehnke said the inmates worked “hand and foot with us.”

“They’re not very happy,” he said. “They’ve been some of our best supporters, doing the physical work and providing some financial donations.”

Moehnke started Backpack Buddies after learning of a similar program in South Dakota. It addressed the needs of children from low-income families who depended on school lunches for healthy meals during the week, but have few options for nutritious food on the weekends. It provided food for students in the Fort Dodge Community School District, Head Start and the former consortium school at the Rabiner Treatment Center.