Natalie Hanson from the Long Beach Elks Lodge, left, and Bo Haldeman, one of the leaders of Food4Kids, received a $1,000 check Thursday from the Ilwaco Masons. Occident Lodge No. 48 donated $500 and the fraternity’s statewide charitable organization, Washington Masonic Services, doubled it.

Food4Kids continues to seek funds to help feed students in the Ocean Beach School District.

Volunteers gather at the Long Beach Elks Lodge Thursday mornings to pack up nutritious food and snacks. These are distributed to students to take home for the weekend.

Bo Haldeman, one of the group’s leaders, noted the importance of the program. “It’s to get food to kids for the weekend,” she said. “There’s a need. Without this, they would go hungry.”

Elks member Natalie Hanson said the program began in 2011 with a teacher reporting to long-time community advocate Martha Murfin that her students lacked concentration Monday mornings — until they ate lunch.

Murfin started the program with elementary-age kids and expanded it to students of all ages. She recruited Hanson to help run it. “The teacher told her that the kids’ attention span was gone, but it changed after lunch,” Hanson said. “This was because they had not been eating all weekend.”

Now the group serves 230 students from low-income families each week and depends on an annual budget of about $40,000 to make it happen.

Donations for Food4Kids can be mailed to P.O. Box 441, Long Beach WA 98631.