LYNN – Connery School and the Greater Boston Food Bank have distributed 500 food packs to Connery students since January, including some who are homeless and living with their families in a relative or friend’s home.”We’re a high poverty school,” said Connery Principal Patricia Riley who coordinates Food Bank distributions to Connery kindergarten students and first graders.The distribution is designed to feed children in the public school systems when they cannot access free or reduced-price school meals. Lawrence was the first Massachusetts community to roll out the nationally branded Back Pack Program in its public schools, followed by Lynn.The Back Pack Program was developed by Feeding America, the nation’s food bank network, of which The Greater Boston Food Bank is a member.Riley said Connery has coordinated several food pack distributions to kindergarten children and first graders since January.”We are able to provide backpacks to all of our little guys in kindergarten and first grade, as well as one of our special needs classrooms. The kids are so excited when they get their bags. We have an ESL class for some of our parents and have been able to provide them with some of the extras,” Riley said.The typical contents of a backpack might include fruit, fruit juice, macaroni and cheese, soup, vegetables, granola, crackers, peanut butter, shelf-stable milk, applesauce and cereal that is low in sugar. The program to date has been underwritten by grants from Target, Genzyme Corporation and the J.E. and Z.B. Butler Foundation.The packs are distributed to children on Fridays to provide families with food through the weekend. Riley said many Connery parents work in low-paying jobs while others are homeless and doubling up with friends or family.The Food Bank helps 394,000 people annually and Food Bank President Catherine D’Amato estimates one third are children.The Back Pack Program concept was originally developed in Little Rock, Ark. after a school nurse asked for help because hungry students were coming to her with stomachaches and dizziness. The local food bank began to provide the schoolchildren with groceries in nondescript backpacks to carry home.The pilot program was launched in 1995 and the National Council of Feeding America approved the BackPack Program as an official national program in July 2006. More than 140 Feeding America members operated more than 3,600 Back Pack Programs and served more than 190,000 children in 2009.The Greater Boston Food Bank distributes more than 31 million pounds of food and grocery products annually to nearly 600 member hunger-relief agencies throughout eastern Massachusetts.