Hendersonville Standard
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Church provides food items for Sumner students in need





Marianne Blodgett and Susan Bunn (right) helped pack food and snack items for Sumner County students in need last week at Hendersonville First United Methodist Church.TENA LEE/tlee@mainstreetmediatn.com

Marianne Blodgett and Susan Bunn (right) helped pack food and snack items for Sumner County students in need last week at Hendersonville First United Methodist Church.TENA LEE/tlee@mainstreetmediatn.com

One local church mobilized quickly recently after being notified by Sumner County Schools that some of its students were in need of non-perishable food items.

Members of Hendersonville First United Methodist Church, led by the church’s Women in Faith group, stuffed items like juice boxes, snacks, canned ravioli and cartons of milk into backpacks on Nov.17, and delivered the items to the Sumner County Board of Education.

The items will then be distributed to the more than 230 homeless and food insecure children in the Sumner County school system.

HFUMC member Shirley Cooper has been coordinating her church’s backpack program with the local school district for more than 15 years.

Cooper said the group stuffed its usual amount of 325 backpacks around two months ago and didn’t expect to be needed again so soon.

“This was really kind of a desperation call,” said Cooper. “We normally don’t see this many children in need this early in the season.”

Hendersonville First United Methodist Church members Mary Nell Veazey and Beverly Fussell (right) were among those who helped stuff backpacks for Sumner County students in need last week.TENA LEE/tlee@mainstreetmediatn.com

Hendersonville First United Methodist Church members Mary Nell Veazey and Beverly Fussell (right) were among those who helped stuff backpacks for Sumner County students in need last week.TENA LEE/tlee@mainstreetmediatn.com

Students in need receive snack packs to take home every Friday for the weekend, according to Katie Brown, assistant director for student support for Sumner County Schools.

“The number of students receiving food packs has increased so much that we have exceeded what is covered by our partnership with Second Harvest [Food Bank],” said Brown. “Groups like FUMC help to bridge the gap on these resources so we can cover the needs and expand our support to new families.”

Cooper says her group funds its backpack program through a Sunday School class fundraiser held each year and church members are always eager to help fill the snack packs.

“I just put out a plea and they come,” she said.

Both the number of food insecure children and the number of students who meet the criteria for being homeless has grown in Sumner County, according to Marijo Monette, who coordinates the federal McKinney-Vento grant for Sumner County Schools.

“If it wasn’t for Second Harvest Food Bank and our faith-based community, we would not be able to meet the need,” said Monette. “Anytime there is a shortage of food, I can call Shirley Cooper at FUMC and she recruits her devoted volunteer crew to make a delivery of 325 weekend food backpacks to Sumner Schools Family Resource Center Food Pantry.”

Monette says that’s enough to feed 80 students for four weekends.

“With the shortage, we needed to make that call last week and within one week they delivered food. Now we will be able to provide food into the new year.”

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