NRG’s Houston-based employees are commemorating the company’s 17th annual positiveNRG Impact week to help combat food insecurity in their hometown. The week of volunteerism will feature hundreds of employees preparing meal kits for the Houston Food Bank’s Backpack Buddy program at NRG Center, making it the Houston Food Bank’s largest off-site packing event.
This week of volunteerism is part of a larger NRG initiative that unites thousands of employees in 43 cities across the U.S. and Canada around the cause of food insecurity. During the week, employee volunteers will ultimately provide 1 million meals for local nonprofits and an estimated 1.2 million pounds of food for individuals and families in need.
One in five southeast Texas children is considered food insecure, which means they don’t have consistent access to enough nutritious food. The Houston Food Bank’s Backpack Buddy program provides nutritious, kid-friendly food for the weekend for at-risk children in grades K-12. Many of these children rely on school meals to provide breakfast and lunch but go home to little or no access to food. The Backpack Buddy program works to fill that gap over the weekend by partnering with schools to ensure the food is distributed every Friday. The bags of food are discreetly placed in the child’s backpack to privately provide food assistance.