 |
| Rebecca Synder, 7, sits among the canned goods she collected at her birthday party for the Pack-A-Sack 4 Kids program |
I love when I hear about or see good things kids
in our community are doing. I think it's important to highlight what's right
with our youth instead of dwelling on the negative things.
A few weeks ago a friend's daughter, Rebecca, had a party
for her seventh birthday. She asked her mom if on the invitation they could ask
people to bring canned goods and other non-perishable items to her birthday to
help kids at schools who go hungry on the weekends. I was really impressed a
young child would think about helping other kids who are less fortunate.
How would a 7-year-old know about kids being
hungry? Rebecca sees and helps her mom pack 50 bags of food for local
elementary school children every week at Faith Community Church. Her mom is
part of a women's Bible study who have adopted kids from Bardmoor Elementary and Orange
Grove Elementary School and who bring food to the schools so the kids can take the bags home
on the weekends.
It's hard to imagine, but little kids in elementary
school are going hungry on the weekends in Pinellas County. During the week,
these kids are able to get some food with the free or reduced breakfast and lunch
programs, but when school isn't in session they go hungry.
I didn't realize this until a few years ago when I
was introduced to the community outreach program of United Methodist
Cooperative Ministries/Suncoast called Pack-A-Sack 4 Kids. This program works
with the school boards in Pinellas, Manatee and Pasco counties to provide food
to children who desperately need it on the weekends.
The women's Bible study at Faith Community Church is just one of the many organizations helping provide food to children at
local schools. I know first- hand it takes a lot of coordination and
contributions from others to help make this program successful.
At Faith, one of the ladies who heads up the
ministry is Barbi Pierson. She not only organizes the donations and coordinates
the packing of the bags, but she is also a phenomenal coupon shopper. Let's
just say a dollar goes a long way when Barbi shops. Each bag of food purchased
ends up being about $3 per kid and includes items that have a long shelf life
like cereals, peanut butter, crackers, condensed milk, canned fruit etc.
Recently holiday bags were packed for the kids
with extra food, so when the kids are out of school for the Thanksgiving break
they will have food during the week. The food Rebecca collected at her party
helped fill those bags. It takes a community to make projects like this work
and it's inspiring to me to see kids doing good deeds and being a part of the
community at a young age.
If you want to help or donate to this program
email Barbi Pierson at barbi1759@aol.com.
