NORTHAMPTON — As funding dries up for a program that for three years has supplemented free school meals with weekend groceries for local elementary school students, the nonprofit Weekend Nutrition for Northampton Students (WNNS) is working to raise $123,000 to keep children fed outside of school hours during the 2026-2027 school year.
Initially funded as a pilot program with federal money the city secured from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the families of 320 students during the 2025-206 school year could choose either $40 grocery store gift cards or an equivalent amount in grocery bags each month.
“The idea is really that there are students who really depend on their school breakfast and lunch,” WNNS President Cathy Wanat said. “Everyone now in our schools in Massachusetts can choose to get free breakfast and lunch [during the school day] but particularly, we were focusing on students who would have qualified for the old free- and reduced-cost lunches.”
Wanat said the program costs approximately $150,000 each year to operate, and WNNS has so far raised $27,000 toward that goal through a private grant and community donations. She said four faith groups — Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence, St. John’s Episcopal Church, College Church and First Churches of Northampton — have played crucial roles in fundraising and collecting money.
As WNNS will likely be unable to raise the necessary funds before the start of the school year in late August, the nonprofit’s board members are considering reducing the gift card amounts to $25 per student each month.
Northampton Public Schools Nutrition Director Mistelle Hannah said that while the board is leaning toward reducing the project’s scope, rather than cutting it completely, WNNS at this point only has sufficient funding to keep the program afloat for another three months.
“We were reaching nearly 90% of our student free- and reduced-(cost) population, so those kids would be most in jeopardy for not having consistent meals over the weekend, and it’s gravely impactful,” Hannah said. “This program is gravely needed now more than ever, and with rising food costs, it would just be so devastating to lose the program at this point after this many years of it going successfully.”
While WNNS board members are actively searching for federal grants to save the program, Hannah said the board has yet to identify any larger grants for such programs.
Over the course of three years, the program has grown from only serving students at Bridge Street School to including Leeds, Jackson Street and RK Finn Ryan Road elementary schools. Wanat said that should the nonprofit secure enough funding to maintain level services, it plans to then expand the service at the middle and high schools.
“We were serving all four elementary schools for this last school year and we’d like to, at a minimum, continue to serve those students and families that are food insecure through the whole year,” Wanat said. “We’ve had some very generous individual donations, but we’re hoping that more people in the community will step up — it’s a simple, but a very powerful thing to support a kid’s weekend food.”
A federally registered tax-exempt charitable organization, WNNS is run entirely by volunteers. Those who wish to donate can send checks addressed to Weekend Nutrition for Northampton Students, or WNNS, to 48 Elm St., Northampton. Donations are also being accepted electronically at square.link/u/XFTrgwl4.
