Many of you have said to me, “We don’t have a hunger problem here in Whitehall and Coplay. That is an issue in the big cities like Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton.”

Hunger is a national problem in every community except the wealthiest of wealthy. Please, please accept the fact that we have a large number of food-insecure people here - preschool kids, students, young adults, middle-aged adults and many senior citizens. Many people are the working poor who work two and even three jobs. This article deals with helping the students of Whitehall and Coplay get food during long weekends.

As of Feb. 10, 2017, there are 3,904 Whitehall students - 1,744 of them (44.7 percent) receive a free lunch; 258 students (6.6 percent) receive a reduced-price lunch. There are 436 students from Coplay - 224 of them (51.4 percent) receive a free lunch and 35 students (8 percent) receive a reduced-price lunch. That’s a total of 4,340 students, of which 2,261 receive help with lunch. That’s 52 percent of the student body.

Those who qualify for the lunch program also qualify for the breakfast program. A big thank you goes out to Lorie Hackett and Whitehall-Coplay School Board for recognizing an important issue and addressing it. The district’s breakfast program started in 2015.

Also, I am sure you see the Feeding America billboards that specifically state one in five children is hungry in America. That 20 percent includes all children, babies to age 18. We have 52 percent in our school district, and that number does not include babies and preschool kids.

Those who have doubted the importance of this topic, do you now understand and accept that hunger is indeed here in Whitehall and Coplay? Please help our Hunger Initiative alleviate childhood hunger. This is a huge community issue that we can tackle and overcome.

The Snack Pack Pals program was founded in 2015 by Leah Saliby, an eighth-grade English teacher at Whitehall-Coplay Middle School. Leah knew she could not help every child, but she started with the neediest 50 kids in kindergarten through eighth grade. In the fall of 2016, she increased the number of students being helped from 50 to 80. Because of generous donations from the public and student, church and Hunger Initiative food drives, Leah is now able each month to help 100 of the neediest students from kindergarten through 12th grade. A big thank you goes out to all of you who have donated food and/or a monetary donation for this cause.

Leah is the adviser to the middle school’s Leo Club, which has 30 middle school student members. The Leo Club is part of the larger Lions Club International. High school students, such as those in honor societies, in need of community service hours are invited to volunteer for the Snack Pack Pals program. Students can assist in taking inventory and checking expiration dates of food items, as well as packing the Snack Packs prior to distribution.

If you would like to make a food donation, Leah is most in need of the following: small size (8 ounces) shelf-stable milk boxes, macaroni and cheese (boxes & bowls), Chef Boyardee (cans and microwavable bowls), small boxes of cold cereal, fruit cups, applesauce cups, juice boxes/pouches, fruit snacks, packs of cheese/ peanut butter crackers, graham crackers, small boxes of raisins, small peanut butter to go packs and granola bars.

Three locations are now available for you to drop off food for the Snack Pack Pals program: Whitehall Township Public Library, 3700 Mechanicsville Road; Coplay Public Library, 49 S. Fifth St.; and Re/Max Unlimited Real Estate, 1080 Schadt Ave, Whitehall. Monetary donations can be mailed to Leah Saliby’s attention at Whitehall-Coplay School District, 2940 MacArthur Road, Whitehall, 18052. Please make checks payable to Whitehall-Coplay School District, and mark “Snack Pack Pals” in the memo section of the check. For more information, contact Leah at salibyl@whitehallcoplay.org.

“I am so appreciative of the outpouring of support from the school district and community,” Leah said. “The need for this program is real, it’s immediate, and it runs through every demographic in our district. Hunger never takes the weekend off, but with everyone’s help, it soon could. And that is the purpose and goal of Snack Pack Pals.”

Knowing there are a large number of students who truly rely on the free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch program at the school district as their main food source, the Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative will be starting a free summer breakfast program when school finishes in June. This will be held 8:30-10 a.m. Monday through Friday at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 835 Third St., Whitehall. We will be providing breakfast, a summer reading program, exercise and an activity. We need many volunteers for this. More information will follow.

For any information on the Hunger Initiative, contact me at 610-266-5241 or shari@sharinoctor.com.