Waiting for the Weekend – The Adoption and Proliferation of Weekend Feeding (“BackPack”) Programs in Schools

Abstract

Abstract This research studies factors affecting the rapid spread of a donor-driven, Feeding America BackPack (weekend food assistance) program at schools in northwestern North Carolina. Foodbank data are matched with census tract, administrative-school, and GIS data for places of worship (PWs), facilitating analyses of the role of need, religion, and race/ethnicity. Our conceptual model yields a new hybrid fragmentation index that captures racial/ethnic differences between the school and community. Consistent with the model, discrete-time survival estimates suggest that schools with a racial/ethnic composition different from the surrounding community were less likely to get a program, especially if no other program-eligible schools were nearby. The GIS-created PWs bring new information, but yield results only weakly suggestive of a positive relationship. Results withstand falsification and robustness checks. A descriptive update reveals that most high-need schools eventually offered weekend food assistance but that race/ethnicity may still play a role for those that do not.