The other students aren’t aware of the change in their classmates, but the teachers and counselors are.
Children in need of food over the weekends at the Franklin Academy Elementary school in Columbus and in pre-K through eighth grade throughout Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District get bags with four meals in their backpacks on Fridays during the school year, thanks to ministry programs with the First United Methodist churches in Columbus and Starkville.
Both programs buy the food from the Mississippi Food Network, a Jackson-based food bank. The Starkville program is entering its eighth year and the Columbus program is entering its sixth.
Teachers make their best efforts to be discrete, putting the food in the children’s backpacks on Fridays when the students are out of the classrooms, but the recipients know and appreciate where the food comes from, said Terrie Gooch, a physical education teacher at Franklin.
“I can see it in their eyes, something that’s grateful and relieved that there’s help,” she said.
Teachers and counselors identify eligible children every August and refer them to the programs so they can start receiving food in September. Eligibility has to come from a faculty recommendation, not from a parental request, to ensure that the children in the most need receive those four meals every week, said Susan Tomlinson, the Starkville program coordinator.
The program at Franklin benefits about 70 to 90 students per week, said Lee Burdine, the serving chair at Columbus’ First United Methodist Church, just a few blocks south of school.
“We would love to expand throughout Columbus, but we’re just taking this on (right now),” Burdine said.
The Starkville program provided almost 6,400 meals to Oktibbeha County students during the 2018-19 school year, Tomlinson said.
Ashley Childress has been a counselor at Sudduth Elementary School in Starkville for three years and said she has seen firsthand the program’s positive impact on those students.
“When their nutritional needs are met, they’re happier and healthier and more excited to come to school,” Childress said. “They don’t have to worry about the weekend and being hungry because they’re able to pretty much feed themselves, and they’re coming back the next week full and ready to learn.”
The program is aimed at children whose parents might not be present and who “have to fend for themselves” on weekends, Gooch said.
Three organizations administer the Starkville program while Tomlinson, the 2018 recipient of the statewide Volunteer Mississippi Outstanding Humanitarian Award, oversees the entire thing. The First United Methodist Church administers the program for kids in pre-K through fourth grade, the Starkville Junior Auxiliary works with fifth graders and the Church of Christ on Lee Boulevard works with sixth through eighth grade.
Meals cost the organizations $4 each — though recipients don’t pay a dime — and all the food is nonperishable and contained in packaging safe for children as young as pre-K, Tomlinson said. The program holds a monthly food pantry for families to get an extra bag of groceries for eight months every year.
The program runs on volunteer work and donations, and it recently received a grant from the national Emergency Food and Shelter Program, Tomlinson said.
Some Franklin students receive more than one meal if they have siblings at home or at another school under the age of 16, so they will each have enough food and not have to share, Gooch said. The program also puts together backpacks full of supplies including gloves, toothbrushes, Chapstick and other non-food items children might need over the weeks of Christmas break.
Gooch said backpack meal programs build stronger relationships between students and teachers, and Childress said they build a connection between school and home. Both said the confidentiality of the programs is vital so students are not stigmatized or embarrassed.
This is Sudduth principal Morgan Abraham’s first year at SOCSD, but she said she has seen children benefit from backpack meal programs in other areas.
“That is the highlight of their Friday,” said Abraham, who came to Starkville from the Tupelo Public School District. “It’s a very exciting time for them.”
To donate or volunteer with the program, contact FUMC in Starkville at 662-323-5722 or Columbus at 662-328-5252.
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