LOYAL. LOCAL. COMPLETE.
PARIS—This week, kids across Edgar County wrapped up their studies and returned home for Christmas break. According to data gathered in 2022, as many as 580 students won’t know when or where their next meal will come from before they return to school.
The same data, part of the Map the Meal Gap initiative from Feeding America, shows that the food insecurity rate for children in Edgar County is 17.6 percent. Brittany Smith used to work in the school system, witnessing the effects of food insecurity firsthand.
“When you work with all the kids, you get to kind of learn about their life,” Smith said.
Today, Smith serves as the Edgar County 4-H Program Coordinator, managing volunteers, planning events and coordinating 4-H programs. Her heart for food-insecure youth followed her to her new profession, and when an opportunity to combat the issue with her 4-H’ers arose, Smith leaped at the chance.
The Edgar County 4-H Federation was one of 14 groups participating in the Fall 2024 Illinois 4-H Food Advocacy program. The program distributes funds to 4-H chapters throughout the state to support the fight against child hunger and food insecurity. After Smith learned of the opportunity and applied, the Edgar County chapter received $1,000 in grant funding.
The money was used to purchase shelf-stable and ready-to-eat canned goods, snack bars, fruit cups and more for children enrolled in Food for Kids. On Wednesday, Dec. 18, 4-H members, parents and volunteers packaged the food to be distributed to local schools by Pastor Kurt Speece, who serves as the president of Food for Kids and has been with the program since its inception in 2015.
The donation of food items comes at a critical time—winter break brings uncertainty to children who rely almost exclusively on the meals they receive at school for nutrition. The extra supply will alleviate pressure on kids and their families.
Smith first learned of Food for Kids after seeing Speece and other volunteers use the conference room at the Illinois Extension Office to pack weekend meals for roughly 200 students each week. Since then, Smith’s had a front-row seat to the hard work of Food for Kids volunteers.
“They're just so committed to making it happen each week … they're committed to doing that shopping for those kids and taking the bags to the school,” she said.
The decision to support the group with the grant money, as opposed to developing and coordinating an entirely separate effort, made sense to Smith.
“I was like, ‘Well, that (the grant) is really cool. We do that here, you know, in our community,’” she recalled. “And so I thought, how can we help them? Because it's a huge undertaking.”
“Our start of getting our feet wet with the whole process was: let's start with an organization that's already doing something, and how we can grow from it and what we can do next,” Smith added.
Smith hopes the grant, as well as the shopping and packing that followed, served as an educational opportunity for her 4-H participants.
“A part of the grant process is the kids have to be fully involved in the finer details of it…” she said, adding, “(I) hope some of the conversations afterward is … ‘Why are this many kids seeing this kind of insecurity?’ And so I guess the bigger picture would be, you know, how can we help in other ways and other times of the year?”
Smith’s 4-H proteges, all of different ages, were eager participants in Wednesday’s food-packing session, an exercise designed to cultivate care and empathy.
“Our 4-H motto is ‘to make the best better,’ so I think we just got to get the kids to see all sides of what the world is like because some kids may never have to know where their next meal comes from,” Smith said. “I think it's important for the kids to always, you know, show compassion and understanding for different people's life circumstances.”
Speece was also present at Wednesday’s packing session and voiced his deep gratitude for the work of Smith and her students. He also noted the effort relies entirely on local donations.
“It’s vital. Without the generosity of the community, we wouldn’t be able to buy the food for them (the kids),” he said.
Fortunately for Speece and the children in the program, the outpouring of financial support is holding steady.
“We’ve been blessed with a solid financial foundation,” he said.
To learn more about Food for Kids and potential volunteer opportunities, contact Speece by calling Bell Ridge Christian Church at 217-463-8024. Donations can be taken out to the church or left with the trust department at Prospect Bank.