BROOKSVILLE — A donation of 80 meals for students in the Bracken County Schools backpack program was received by the Bracken County Family Resource and Youth Services Center recently.

The backpack program sends food home with students on the weekend.

Trish Conley, with the FRYSC office, said she was contacted by Taylor Elementary/Bracken County Middle School nurse Rachel Harrison, who also works with her mother’s restaurant, Donna’s Place, in Brooksville about the possibility of helping with students in need.

“I knew they were planning to do something, but I never expected all of this,” Conley said. “For a small business, such as Donna’s Place, to do something like this — it’s just amazing. We have a wonderful community.”

According to Conley, there are 80 students in the backpack program and a box was donated for each of them. Inside each box are small items that kids could make for themselves, such as pop tarts, Vienna sausages, snack cakes, raviolis, juices and other items.

“We told them we have 80 kids and they brought over 80 boxes,” she said. “We were so excited and overwhelmed. When you have a community this small, everyone comes together and we wouldn’t be able to do the things that we do without the help of our community.”

Conley said the boxes will be sent home with the kids when they leave for Christmas break on Wednesday.

All of the students participating in the program are staff referred, according to Conley.

“These are the kids we worry about when they go home,” she said. “We train our staff, whether it be a teacher, a custodian, a school nurse or bus driver, what to watch for and they refer the students they believe would benefit from the program. The program is 100 percent community supported. No school money goes to the program; everything is provided through donations from the community.”

Harrison said the donations came from a community effort to help students in the district.

“This is our third year collecting items to be donated,” she said. “We will collect gloves and hats, coloring books and crayons and other school supplies. When we post up that we’re collecting those items, some people will give monetary donations and we’ll just purchase those same items with the money.”

According to Harrison, it was decided that the monetary donation would go toward food for students this year.

“I’m a nurse at the elementary and middle school, so I’ve seen first hand which students go without food or who are a part of the backpack program,” she said. “We worry about these kids on the weekends and over breaks, so it was decided that the money would go toward the food boxes.”

Harrison said the items in the boxes were chosen because they were simple to fix and easy to carry.

“We wanted something that was simple so kids could make the food themselves,” she said. “We also wanted to make sure the boxes could be easily carried by the kids.”

In addition to the food boxes, coloring books and crayons were also donated to the preschool and kindergarten students, gloves and hats were donated to the middle school and school supplies were donated to both Taylor Elementary and Bracken County Middle Schools.

“Everything was a community effort,” she said. “Everything was donated and it was the community who made this possible.”

Bracken County Schools Superintendent Jeff Aulick said the district was appreciative of the donations.

“It’s a reflection on the nature of our community with the spirit of Christmas and helping those in need,” he said. “We greatly appreciate all the donations and the students will certainly appreciate all the food items over the holiday season.”

FRYSC …. Kamon Cucchiara and FRYSC Supervisor Trish Conley sort through food boxes for the backpack program. The boxes were donated by Donna’s Place.
https://maysville-online.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/web1_IMG_2271-1.jpgFRYSC …. Kamon Cucchiara and FRYSC Supervisor Trish Conley sort through food boxes for the backpack program. The boxes were donated by Donna’s Place.

Christy Howell-Hoots

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