Lunches of Love School Supply Volunt Eers Share T Heir List Inside Experiences of Support Ing ! Local Childr En
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August 2018 monthly Back w School Lunches of Love School supply volunt eers share t heir list inside experiences of support ing ! local childr en PLUS Broadway’s Adam Pascal to visit Inspiration Stage Contents & Staff Pecan Grove August 2018 monthly™ 6 FEATURE STORY GENERAL MANAGER Lunches of Love volunteers open up about Lee Hartman why they enjoy their work with the non [email protected] ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR profit and what it means to the community. Marquita Griffin mgriffi[email protected] 10 SCHOOL SUPPLIES COMPOSITION & GRAPHICS MANAGER Alfred H. Dubé Find out what your child needs for the [email protected] 2018-2019 school year in LCISD and FBISD. GRAPHIC DESIGNERS 6 Melinda Maya [email protected] 14 IN & AROUND PECAN GROVE Rachel Cavazos The weather didn’t deter support for the [email protected] annual Five Miles My Way event. WRITERS & CONTRIBUTORS Averil Gleason Diana Nguyen 17 THE HARVEY EXPERIENCE Michelle Cornell Don’t miss out on the chance to see how TO ADVERTISE If you are interested in advertising in the Pecan Grove people around the county expressed their Monthly, please call 281-342-4474 for rates, informa- tion and deadlines. Hurricane Harvey experiences in a special PHOTO & ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS 10 exhibit. We are looking for fresh story ideas and enjoy publishing your articles in the Pecan Grove Monthly. If you have an story idea or photo to publish please send your information to mgriffi[email protected] with 19 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT “Monthly” in the subject line. Broadway’s Adam Pascal to participate ©2018 Pecan Grove Monthly. All Rights Reserved. Pecan Grove in Inspiration Satge’s advance Student Monthly has 30,000 print circulation and is a sister publication of Fulshear Living Monthly, Greatwood Monthly, New Territory Showcase. Monthly and is a Publication of the Fort Bend Herald. Our publishing headquarters is 1902 S. Fourth Street, Rosenberg Texas 77471 22 LIBRARY NEWS A summer movie series, family history 19 research and the history of Renaissance art are special event scheduled this month. July 2018 monthly 26 SCHOOL NEWS HGI COUNSELING CENTER helps people overcome obstacles and become the best they can be Mercy Goods partnership give LCISD students a chance to succeed. A mother who lost her son to cancer shares experiences and hopes in NEWLY RELEASED BOOK Like Us On Local actors will showcase Facebook their skills PLUSin a musical 35 HEALTH that is based on a true story Advanced treatment for non-healing wounds offered at Houston Methodist Sugar Tell us how we’re doing! 30 Land. Email: mgriffi[email protected] 4 • Pecan Grove Monthly EXPERT CARE FOR SCHEDULE AN ACTIVE LIFESTYLE TODAY! Nader Ayub, DO David Braunreiter, MD Nish Shah, MD Sienna Plantation Sugar Land Long Meadow Farms 8330 Hwy. 6, Suite 110 16811 Southwest Fwy., Suite 200 7790 W. Grand Pkwy. S., Suite 100 Missouri City, TX 77459 Sugar Land, TX 77479 Richmond, TX 77406 Our primary care sports medicine physicians at Houston Methodist Orthopedics & Sports Medicine are board certified in family medicine and specialize in sports medicine to provide active patients — and even those who are less active — with the full range of care they need. These doctors treat everyday illnesses as well as sports injuries and orthopedic conditions, and offer a unique combination of expertise that provides significant benefits to patients, from children to adults. To schedule an appointment, visit houstonmethodist.org/orthopedics-sl or call 281.612.6546. Feature Story Volunteers: The backbone to Lunches of Love by MARQUITA GRIFFIN racy Kilpatrick of Richmond knows first-hand the value in packages. offering time to helping others, especially those in “Many children living in families facing food insecurity her own community. For the past five years rely on school lunch as their only meal of the day,” Kilpatrick, 42, who volunteers for the Tr Gray said. “Lunches of Love is here to help fill T acy R&R Aquatics program and the Frost K the gap.” il Elementary PTO, has also volunteered for pa Lunches are also provided to every tr Lunches of Love, a local nonprofit that ic child living in the household who is 18 k serves nutritional lunches to students years old and younger. in Lamar Consolidated ISD and Fort “I think that the organization is Bend ISD when school isn’t in really unique in that it approaches session, like the weekends, holidays, the issue of childhood hunger in a and spring and summer breaks. grassroots manner,” said Richmond This summer, Lunches of Love volunteer Shawna Russo. “Every fruit again coordinated its 55 days of cup, decorated bag and minute spent summer lunches, which began in delivering directly impacts the June and will end Aug. 24. children of the local community, During this session alone, 4,000 improving each and every one of their students will be served. lives. There’s not another local “We are a year-round program,” Kilpatrick organization that I can think of that is so stressed. “We don’t take a break when school is involved within the local area in this way.” out.” Lunches of Love was formed in 2009 and currently EVERY BIT MATTERS serves 15 Title 1 elementary schools and three Title 1 middle The program began by feeding 150 children. Now the program schools. Lunches of Love creator and director Adriane Gray provides thousands of children with lunches. In June 2015 said the organization hopes to add two schools to Lunches of Love served its millionth free lunch and the FBISD route this fall. by July 2017 it had served its two millionth “No child should go hungry and if it’s meal. happening in my community then I want When Hurricane Harvey devastated the to be a part of the solution,” said area in August 2017, the program Kilpatrick who volunteers along with immediately absorbed about 500 more her husband and daughter. “This children into the program. program happens rain or shine. On For the extended school holiday days when it’s tough to get out of sessions to run smoothly, the bed, you just think of all the kids organization requires about 110 who will walk or ride a bike in the dedicated volunteers every day and rain to get their lunch and it gets you during the school year, about 50 on your feet.” volunteers are needed each During the school year, 2,500 Wednesday to handle the weekend students are served each weekend. lunches. School-year lunches begin the second “In 2017 we had over 8,000 walk t) week of the school year to allow teachers Sh igh through our doors,” Gray said. “It makes awna sso (r and staff a full week to identify with any new Ru your heart happy to see so many volunteers of students, Gray said, explaining that school staff all ages want to do good and give back to their determines which students need weekend care community.” 6 • Pecan Grove Monthly Russo, who has been with the program since 2014 and also “Teaching young children and young adults to give to others is volunteers at the Rosenberg Railroad Museum, said she “admires an amazing life lesson,” Schneider said. how much Lunches of Love has grown in recent years and Russo said by becoming a Lunches of Love volunteer you also continues to do so.” gain a family. Meeting every week — or every day during the “There are so many people who have been reached by the summer — unites people. program,” she said. “And there’s still so much to be accomplished.” “We care about what happens in our communities and really Gray fondly recalls the man who approached her on 4th Street, take charge to make change happen,” she said. “We see a need in at Lunches of Love’s base of operations at First United Methodist our community and we do all that we can to ensure that the Church, in Rosenberg three years ago. needs are met to the best of our abilities. The man had spotted the organization’s van “Everyone has a place in our family.” pulling into the parking lot and asked Gray if Grey Becoming a volunteer is easy, Russo adds. ne she was with Lunches of Love. When she ia “There’s no age limit, so the whole dr confirmed, he pulled a $5 bill from his A family can come out and make an pocket and offered it to her. impact,” she said. “Just find a day with “This sweet man didn’t look like he open positions, put your name down had $5 to spare, so I told him to keep and voilà!” his money, we’d be OK.” Adult volunteers deliver lunches He insisted three times, so Gray to the children and their families, accepted his donation. Then she older children work on the assembly asked how he came to learn about line or kitchen and little children Lunches of Love. decorate the iconic Lunches of Love “You feed my granddaughter. This is bags. all I have to give, but I want you to Volunteers as young as two years old have it,” the man said. and as old as 92 years have given time to Gray explained to the grandfather that the nonprofit. Gray jokingly added: “If you his donation would feed six children, a fact can hold a crayon and count to five, we have that shocked and satisfied him. a job for you.” “He thought maybe it would feed one child, but “Even just donating items is a great way to get certainly not six,” Gray said. “When he walked away, he had a little involved,” Russo said.