MANKATO — A good way doesn’t really exist to determine whether every kid, when they leave school at the end of the week, comes back to school on Monday well fed and ready to learn.

But there’s a good way to pinpoint the ones who haven’t.

“It’s very obvious to us at times that some of our students have not have the nutrition they need over the weekend,” said Les Koppendrayer, principal of Franklin Elementary School.

So a new pilot project is launching that aims to take a bite out of some of that hunger. The BackPack Food Program, created by the Feeding Our Community Partners nonprofit organization, will send kids home with enough food to make sure they have enough to eat during the weekend.

Teachers will put the food packs into each child’s backpack discreetly, and the meals will be nutritious. In addition to weekends, the children who qualify for the program will be given food for school breaks.

Franklin was chosen first because it is the elementary school with the highest percentage — nearly half — of children who receive free or reduced-price lunch. The first phase of the program will include kindergarten through third grade. It started Friday and will continue through the end of the school year.

Next fall, program organizers say they hope to expand it to other grades and, eventually, all of Mankato Area Public Schools and other school districts in Blue Earth County.

Melinda Wedzina, Feeding Our Community Partners board secretary, said the stories they’ve heard from school staff prompted them to pursue this program.

”We heard from teachers and administrators about the examples of hunger they have witnessed at school,” she said. “Some teachers are bringing in food from their own homes to help students.”

Wedzina said a nutrition team worked to select child-friendly nutritious products that will be purchased from area businesses to include each week in the backpacks. Program evaluators, including school personnel and other professionals, will continue to document each step of the program.

A research and evaluation team from Minnesota State University will be monitoring the program’s results through interviews with teachers, students and parents.

So far, 13 out of the 16 kindergarten through third-grade classes have students in the program. Each pack of food costs $3.40 per child and contains breakfast, lunch and healthy snacks for two days.

“It just feels like this is the right time to do it with the economy being the way it is,” Wedzina said. “The last thing we want to do is let down those who can’t speak for themselves: the children.”

Funding for the first phase of the BackPack Food Program pilot has been donated by the Greater Mankato Area United Way, the Mankato Clinic Foundation and Immanuel St. Joseph’s—Mayo Health System.