Patti understandably has a special passion for volunteering for the Cambria County Backpack Project — she taught in the area for 35 years! And as a teacher, she witnessed firsthand the struggles many students face with food insecurity.
“I could see just from teaching that long, what a need our community had,” she explains. Patti learned to recognize the telltale signs — students coming to school without lunch or a snack. She and her fellow teachers constantly worried about their students getting enough to eat … sometimes even giving them food so they didn’t have to be hungry that day.
Now retired, Patti finds the best way to help is by volunteering with the Cambria County Backpack Project. A partner of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, the program provides bags of healthy weekend meals and produce to students. “And the kids don’t have a stigma attached to it because they can quietly get their bag and just put it in their backpack,” Patti says. “It’s a wonderful thing.”
Thanks to dedicated volunteers like Patti — and supporters like you — the program recently expanded to an additional site, allowing it to serve 200 more students weekly. The growth has been especially impactful in reaching rural districts where transportation can be a barrier.
Patti’s decades of caring for students, combined with her determined volunteering, show how one person can make a meaningful difference in their community. We’re so grateful for all of our volunteers!