The Nutrition On Weekends program is a collaborative, community effort to target childhood hunger. The program provides healthy, ready-to-eat nutritional foods for children during the weekend. The program was created in response to data collected from Marshfield students as part of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. In 2012, 20% of students surveyed indicated he/she had gone to bed hungry at least once in the past thirty days because there was not enough food in the home. In 2015, this percentage increased to 23%.

A pilot of the program began serving twenty-nine children in the Marshfield School District in October 2013. Since then, the program had grown to serve over 250 students weekly on an annual basis in the Marshfield, Auburndale, Granton and Spencer School Districts, as well as, children at the Wood County Head Start Marshfield Center.

This (2016-17) school year Loyal and Greenwood School Districts have also been added to the program. With the addition of these two school districts and our early enrollment numbers we anticipate this being our biggest year yet. Currently, the program is serving over 330 in our area. Children are referred to the program by Guidance Counselors at their schools. Recently a Guidance Counselor wrote:

"Would you consider adding another student to the program? I had a high school student stop by my office and asked to be added to the program, since he stated that there was often not enough food at their house."

The NOW program gets many referrals, but this was the first time a student asked to be added to the program. If you didn't think children in our area are facing food insecurities in their home, think again.