St. James Episcopal Church has received grants from two different organizations to help provide funds to combat food insecurity.

Senior warden Mary Flores wrote the proposals for both of the grants. She said the church decided at a meeting how to use the grant money on July 11.

“The Addium-METER grant is $5,225. That grant is designated to help us sustain and fund our backpack food program,” Flores said. “The backpack food program provides weekend food bags to children enrolled in the Community Child Care Center.”

Flores said the backpack food program is meant to provide food for children who may be at risk for food insecurity. The money from the Addium-METER grant helps the church to buy food bags for 95 children every other week while funding for the other half of the year is raised internally.

“The Innovia grant is also designated to our backpack food program, but it enables us to expand that program,” she said. “The funds from the Innovia grant we’ll use to provide what we call food for families. We know that if children are at risk for food insecurity, their families are probably also at risk for food security.”

Flores said they are hoping to provide distributions of food for families during the back-to-school period when there is a lot of financial pressure on families and again between Thanksgiving and Christmas when there is similar financial pressure on families.

The church has been aware that they were awarded the Addium-METER grant since May 27 and the Innovia grant since June 8, Flores said. This is the second time the church has worked with Addium-METER.

“We really, for the most part, don’t meet the people. The Child Care Center works with us and does the distribution of the food. We provide the food. They make sure the families get it,” Flores said. “That’s important to us to make sure the people feel their privacy is maintained.”