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Compassion Leads To The Creation Of The Backpack Program In Kentucky, Katrina Sexton, Sherwood Thompson

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty and Staff Research

Children all over the United States currently endure food insecurity, which presents significant issues for their academic performance and general quality of life. This paper examines how the generosity of compassionate individuals and agencies helps to improve the wellbeing and self-motivation of students who go without food. To this end, we review the literature on compassion, particularly how it is theoretically described by positive organizational scholarship (POS). We also review some of the major programs and agencies that have arisen in recent decades to counter the problem of food insecurity and its related concerns—programs such as the Backpack Food program, …