USANA Kids Eat and the USANA Foundation: Backpacks and Beyond

USANA’s focus, as a health and nutritional company, is on providing products and resources to help both adults and children live healthy, active lives. While USANA has a global reach, they are headquartered in Utah and have an active role in their community. One such local program is USANA Kids Eat.

An Overview of USANA Kids Eat

USANA Foundation sponsors a wide range of health-related activities, from directly providing food to at-risk youth to sponsoring garden projects in communities. It was developed to fight malnutrition around the world—the world’s number one health threat. USANA Health Sciences, Inc. covers all of the Foundation’s operating expenses so that donations and volunteer hours go directly to those who need those resources most.

Utah is home to more than 56,000 children who are dealing hunger issues every day. While they get food at school, they often do not know how they will eat outside of the school system.

USANA Kids Eat is one of several programs that the USANA Foundation uses to further its goals of providing nutrition to everyone. USANA Kids Eat provides resources directly to children and their families by giving backpacks filled with food to at-risk youth in the northern Utah area. The children take the backpacks home over the weekend to ensure that they have healthy food options when they are not in school.

The USANA Foundation acquired KidsEat! in 2019 to help this program expand to provide even more assistance to children in the local care. Every week, USANA Kids Eat delivers over 5,600 meals to local at-risk youth. Since 2009, there have been nearly 100,000 backpacks delivered and almost 700,000 meals provided across 41 schools and organizations.

The Impact of USANA’s Backpack Program

There is a unique type of stress that comes with being hungry, and children who need these backpacks are under a lot of stress. These kids not only face their normal stressors of school, friends, sports, and everyday life, but they also have to deal with hunger on top of that, too.

The kids that receive the backpacks are tough; they are resilient. With the right resources, these children can thrive despite these barriers. The backpacks not only provide food, but they also show support for a child who is struggling to deal with these unique stressors. The backpacks show that someone else has that child’s back and that someone else is thinking of them and rooting for them to succeed.

New Teacher Relief Programs from USANA

Unlike other programs that provide the food directly to parents and children, USANA relies on teachers and counselors to pass out bags of food to those who need it. With all of the challenges that COVID-19 has imposed on teachers and school administration, USANA has taken an active role in the local schools. As part of those efforts, the USANA team has seen firsthand just how outstanding teachers have been in making sure that no students fall through the cracks and get food when they need it.

To give back, USANA has created relief bags that are similar to their food bags for children. However, instead of food, these bags contain items to help with occasional stress, such as:

• Resistance bands
• Stress balls
• Chocolate
• Sparkling water
• Essential oils

These are all being packed by USANA employees, rather than volunteers. Roughly 1500 bags will be provided to teachers, as frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic.

For those looking to help out, USANA is welcoming donations of products to add to the stress-relief bags. Sponsorships and volunteers to distribute the bags are also appreciated as well.

Who Is USANA?

USANA creates high quality nutritional products. These products are tailored to fit your body’s needs exactly, and, as a result, your health can be maintained by USANA’s nutritional supplements, skincare commodities, and other products. Every product is backed by research to provide products that will help individuals to live a healthy lifestyle and encourage them to continually improve each day.

USANA’s holistic view of wellness does not just provide “quick fixes.” Instead, it provides products that have a goal of creating optimal cellular nutrition for everyone. Products are specially formulated for your wellbeing.

Getting Involved with USANA Kids

USANA always welcomes money donations for their regular food program. You can find donation resources on the USANA website. In addition to the local Kids Eat program, USANA Foundation has global meal relief programs, sustainable food programs, and USANA supplement distribution efforts as well.

You can also learn more about volunteer opportunities and ways to fundraise for USANA Kids Eat as well. Volunteers can visit USANA’s location to pack bags, but they can also organize a bag packing event at an outside location as well. If your event will pack over 200 bags, then USANA will come to you!