It’s a day most children anticipate with excitement. Their birthdays are a holiday they probably don’t have to share with anyone else. But when money is tight, sometimes parents have a hard time making it special. Enter the birthday bag project. It’s a project Dr. Barb Witteman, professor of education, started three years ago through the Emergency Food Pantry. Student volunteers and children from local elementary classes would color birthday cards to be placed in a bag with a cake mix and a can of frosting.
As her various classes have worked on this service-learning project they’ve heard Witteman’s signature line, “Every child deserves a cake!” And the number of children who are eligible for a free birthday bag through the Emergency Food Pantry is jarring.
“Last year, 8,949 food insecure children were eligible to receive them,”
Those large numbers don’t deter Witteman and it set in motion a new project by first-year student Sofia Reno. Reno wanted to see how people from her hometown could help create more Birthday Bags. Reno is part of
Reno hoped the group would raise a couple hundred dollars to give a boost to the Birthday Bag program – but the high school students surpassed that goal and presented a check for Reno’s project to the Inquiry class and Witteman for $640.
“This donation will create 320 bags,”
This year, the Inquiry class is paired with Fargo Washington Elementary fourth-graders. The college students and the fourth-graders will color the birthday cards for the bags that will provide 320 more smiles.
But Reno says she’s not done yet. She’s working with her fourth-grade buddy, Aiden, to do a hat-day fundraiser where children can wear hats to school if they bring a freewill donation. The fourth-graders and their college students will also do a public presentation at Family Fare to raise awareness for the program, put the bags together and then deliver them to the Emergency Food Pantry.
As Witteman says – “Every child deserves a cake” – and her students are making that happen one birthday bag at a time.