According to The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, last year the Backpack Program served 19, 051 chronically hungry elementary school students attending 481 schools in Oklahoma.
Growing up in Edmond – I never thought there were families in need or kids that could possibly go hungry if they didn’t take a backpack of food home from school on Friday to sustain them throughout the weekend. I had no idea that their last meal would be Friday’s school lunch and their next meal would be Monday’s school breakfast. I didn’t find out about the Backpack Program until last year when my daughter was in kindergarten. I met with the school counselor for other reasons and somehow, we stumbled onto the “backpack kids” topic. Apparently, I was living under a rock or in my own bubble and I wasn’t the only one. Several moms I spoke to about this were blown away and had no clue. This was an eye-opener for me.
We had about two weeks until Thanksgiving and I was determined to find a way to help these families with a proper Thanksgiving meal. The PTO provides turkeys at Thanksgiving and hams at Christmas. Plus, the school runs a bedlam food drive for these families as well as several more families at Christmas. I know how much turkeys and hams can cost, so I was left with the questions: Could the funds that the PTO budgets for turkeys and hams go toward something else? Do these families get a backpack of food for the holiday break? Do they also get all the sides for Thanksgiving? And so on…
I made one call to a wonderful lady within our family of faith and she didn’t skip a beat. Her women’s group jumped at the chance to help these 30 families in need. I was truly amazed at how quickly they collected and sorted the food for these families. My heart also melted because they didn’t stop there. They not only bought each family a turkey, but also a ham and went above and beyond that to make sure these families had the essential food items to sustain them until school started again.
Those ladies blessed 30 families that day. They were determined to give these families more food than they possibly imagined. I am so grateful to worship alongside those ladies on Sundays.
Jamie Williams, Edmond Campus Director of Administration
