Jamie Tatham, the budget and planning analyst for the Bowdoin treasurer’s office, recently spoke to The Forecaster about a hunger-prevention program that he helped develop last year with Brunswick’s food pantry and soup kitchen, the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Project.

The Backpack Program now provides 250 children with food over weekend when they don’t have regular school meals to rely on. Each Friday afternoon, teachers “covertly stash the bags into the backpacks of students who face empty pantry shelves at home,” the newspaper reports. The kids, who attend 11 local schools, go home with cans of beans and vegetables, bags of rice and snacks. The program costs about $250 a year per student.