After I completed the Heart of the City playground project towards the end of 2015, I began to wonder what I was going to do next. A few months into 2016 I begin to pray and I asked God to guide me and use the strengths that he had given me to do whatever it is that he wanted me to do. I started getting a sense of urgency to feed the children. I didn't know what this meant so I started doing some research. I was at a women's conference in the fall of 2016 and I ended up sponsoring a child in Togo, well I quickly learned that was not what his plans were for me. A few weeks later, I was in a casual conversation with a local teacher and she was telling me how she had students in her classroom that when they go home from school they don't have food in their house. That comment broke my heart because I love to eat and I cannot imagine what it would be like to not have food in your home. And that's when I knew that's what God wanted me to do. Feed his children.

 

I started doing some research again and I learned that while the backpack program does an awesome job of feeding kids for the weekends they don't give any extra or much extra food for seasonal school breaks, so that's when I realized I need to get food to these kids homes for the two-week school breaks. I didn't know how I was going to do it or where I was going to get the food all I knew was that I had to do it!
(I also learned from my research that children were eating their backpack program bag of food on the bus before they got home or they were having to share their food with siblings or in some cases in middle school they were too ashamed to pick up their backpack program bag. So I knew then that we needed to deliver the food to the children's homes and deliver enough food for ALL the children at their house. Ages 1-17.)

I started making some phone calls and I ended up partnering with the Putnam County schools’ food & nutrition program. It took a couple of months of planning and preparing but June 2017 was when we had our first deliveries and that was to about eight kids.

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Actually, the hardest part of the whole process was finding the kids and getting the parents to trust me enough to give me their address to be able to deliver food to their children. People had a hard time believing I wanted to deliver FREE food to their children with no strings attached.  We started delivering food to those eight kids weekly during the summer of 2017 and word begin to spread quickly so by fall break of 2017 we probably had around 30 kids that we were delivering to.

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That December we set up at the toys for tots pick up event and we ended up signing up 100 new families for the Christmas break distribution. So we went from serving 8 to 150 plus kids within six months!
I quickly learned that it was easiest to buy the food from Sam's or Second harvest than to have canned food drives. It was quicker and easier to organize and pack the bags knowing what I had and how much food each item. 

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In 2021, we had grown tremendously. We served around 600-650 children each distribution, and that was about 220ish families. In May of 2026, we delivered to 1150 kids and have expanded into 3 counties. Putnam , Overton and Jackson.

 

We deliver 6 times a year, right before Spring Break, 3 x in the summer, Fall & Christmas breaks. We used around 250 volunteers each distribution and still we currently have zero paid employees! 

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When I first started Food to the Rescue, we church hopped for packing and distribution, using different church gyms, hallways and youth centers. Each distribution we were loading and unloading from our 10 x 10 storage unit there and back, plus moving the pallets of food twice. It was not an easy or convenient task, and prayers were answered in January 2021! We got our own space to set up shop.

 

As far as money and donations go. We currently spend about $30 per individual food box. That’s $180/per year per child. Each distribution we are spending around $30-35k on food depending on the number of children we are serving. Most of our donations are individual donations, but we do have several businesses that donate yearly, and several Churches that donate time, money and space. 

“Food to the Rescue is too big and too important for us to do alone - we would love for you to consider being a volunteer or being a financial partner with us. Maybe your company can sponsor an entire distribution or maybe your family can sponsor a distribution for just one family? Whatever you have to offer - know that Food to The Rescue is making a difference in the lives of families right here in our own community. Will you join with us?”