Doug Lowe — an attorney in Licking County — became aware in his day job of how hunger was a factor for more people than he would have thought. As a board member in 2014 for the Buckeye Valley Family YMCA, an organization with a primary interest in healthy lives, he saw an opportunity.
With Ed Bohren, then the executive officer for “the Y” in Newark, the two of them got wind of an opportunity to drive to Nashville with a rented truck and get a large quantity of shelf-stable, kid-appropriate food. Once back in Ohio, the obvious next question is: how do we get this to the people who need it, most efficiently?
This is where a bunch of Presbyterians come in. Newark City Schools were interested, soon to be accompanied by Heath, Southwest Licking and Granville school districts; they could identify students who needed food to fill in the gaps between lunch on Friday and breakfast on Monday, as most schools offer. It was weekends and breaks that made them nervous; school staff were immediately supportive, but the food still needed to be sorted, packed into some way for kids to get it home, and delivered to the participating schools.
So the “backpack program” was born, today using more commonplace bags as the program expanded far past where using returnable backpacks made sense. Following that pilot program in 2014-2015, the “backpack program” launched in the 2015-2016 school year, with the Presbyterian Church Partners (PCP) of eight congregations around Licking County swinging into action. Groups of largely retirees met regularly to fill backpacks with set amounts of food for a certain number of meals, and do the delivery of them from the YMCA warehouse space to the school door.
Ten years later, the “Healthy Kids Network” is serving 435 students in 22 elementary schools across Licking County, thanks to the YMCA & PCP volunteer partnership. In fact, Adam Shilling, today’s CEO for the Buckeye Valley Family YMCA, is proud to say the program has extended now to Muskingum County, which is part of their service area. The past school year saw 150,000 total meals sent home by the “Healthy Kids Network” — 100,000 of those were received in Licking County, all made possible by volunteer “packing parties” and leveraged by about $100,000 in donations by local partners like Park National Bank.
Trevor Thomas, superintendent of Heath City Schools, points out: “We have students being raised by grandparents, or living in stressful situations, and our staff is always asking ‘what do you need?’ We are so grateful to have this way to respond when their most basic need is just for a little more food to make it through the weekend.”
Those 40 weekends or breaks through the year, with about six meals’ worth of food in each bag to the 435 students, really add up. A hundred thousand meals’ worth of hope.
During a volunteer and donor appreciation event on June 5 at the Newark YMCA complex in the Woody English gym, volunteer coordinator Sarah Bowles talked about the commitment of the volunteers. “None of this is possible without the most basic work of getting the items, the applesauce and fruit cups, the cereal and healthy snacks, sorted into bags and getting those bags to the school door.”
Working under the direction of YMCA staffer Gail Humbert, Bowles makes sure the packing parties arrive to a warehouse event with tables set up and supplies in order.
“The more hands involved, the quicker the job gets done,” she said.
At the ten-year anniversary celebration, representatives from three Licking County school districts joined the volunteers, sharing stories about how the simple opportunity to take some food home for the weekend was changing academic outcomes, and bringing smiles into the lives of children, too. Table displays included stories from student conferences about the important role the “Healthy Kids Network” food bags brought into homes around the county.
Almost a hundred were present for the event, but many were absent: long time volunteer Tom Henry of Second Presbyterian Church had passed away, and the funeral turned out to be on the same day. Doug Lowe, who was to be a principal honoree, was himself absent so as to be present with the Henry family and many of the other volunteers from that congregation.
All of which is a reminder that just as the need is ongoing to provide these “fill in the gap” meals for Licking County kids, the volunteer recruitment needs are ongoing, as people move, and move on, leaving gaps in the driver rosters and at the packing party tables. One message at the ten year celebration was for attendees to tell the story to their friends, as the program continues into a new decade of service.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio.