CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – The Southeast Missouri Department of Athletics will be accepting food and cash donations to Backpacks for Friday in lieu of admission to Monday and Tuesday's men's and women's basketball exhibition games at the Show Me Center.
 
The men will host Missouri S&T on Monday at 6:30 p.m. The women's team will host Culver-Stockton Tuesday at 5 p.m.
 
The Backpacks for Friday Program is administered by the SEMO Food Bank in 14 out of the 16 counties it serves. The program, known as "BFF", meets the needs of 967 hungry children at 71 schools in Southeast Missouri each week when other resources are not available. Backpacks are filled with nutritious, non-perishable meals and snacks, which are discreetly distributed to children to take home over the weekend and designed to feed a family of four. This program alleviates the strain felt by many Southeast Missouri families to provide a nutritious meal to their children over the weekend.
 
Donations made at the exhibition games will be made to the Cape and Jackson school districts to help meet the needs of the Backpacks for Friday program.
 
Acceptable food donations include poptarts, granola bars, peanut butter crackers, cheese crackers, fruit rollups, fruit snacks, individually wrapped snack cakes, single bags of chips, cheese crackers, pretzels, trail mix, etc., as well as Rice Krispie Treats.