As he looked into the children’s hungry eyes, Desmond Tolen saw himself. He smiled as the bags of food left his arms and were grabbed gratefully by the tiny hands of the nine children waiting for him at the doorstep.

“God bless y’all,” he yelled over their screams of joy.

He had grown up being shuffled from family member to family member, sleeping in cars and sometimes not having enough food to eat. No father figure graced the threshold of his home, and his mother was tired.

Fortunately, when he was in fourth grade, a local ministry reached out to kids in his neighborhood, giving them food and spiritual guidance. He never forgot their kindness, and through a series of other role models, Tolen grew into a man who has devoted his life to serving others.

That’s how he found himself working with the Backpack Program at Liberty Church in Foley.

How it began

A year ago, Michaela Callow, an avid couponer who loves to share her stocked shelves with friends and family, wondered if she could use her money-saving knowledge to help the less fortunate in her community.

Liberty Church had a food bank, but she wanted to know if there was a way to deliver food to those in need outside the church walls. She soon discovered that Foley Elementary School was in need of food for impoverished children during weekends and holidays.

“We didn’t want to reinvent any wheel,” Callow said. “We just wanted to fill in any gaps. How can we make it that from January to January that these kids are getting fed?”

Alabama Credit Union had already started a backpack program at the school, but they needed more food and more hands to help pack and deliver the meals. Now, Callow and the volunteers at Liberty Church do all of the packing and delivering for 110 students at Foley Elementary during the school year, and Alabama Credit Union along with Columbia Southern University and Wolf Bay Lodge in Orange beach are the biggest sponsors of the program.

Bill Lawrence, Foley Elementary’s principal, said the work Liberty Church is doing is part of a bigger program at the school aimed at providing children in need with food, clothing, school supplies and whatever else they might need. Other churches and civic organizations have come together to provide a bounty of resources for these children, he said.

“It’s truly a community and faith-based support system for our school, and without them, we would be hard pressed to meet those needs,” Lawrence said. “The biggest difference being made for these children is that they realize there are people who care for them—they’ve got someone in their corner.”

How it works

When the administration at Foley Elementary becomes aware of a child in need, they provide census data to volunteers that include the grade level of the child, their parents’ contact information and their address. Callow said the volunteers in the program do not know the names of the children and seek to protect each family’s privacy.

The meals provided for children during the school year on weekends are placed in each child’s backpack on Friday afternoons while there are no students in the room, Lawrence said.

“It truly is secret,” he said. “There’s no mention of it to anyone, and no one knows about it until the kids go home and open their backpacks.”

Each child receives two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners and two snacks for Saturday and Sunday, and during holidays and summers, the program provides them with three meals a day plus snacks for all seven days of the week.

All of the food must be nonperishable and come in individual sizes, Callow said. The children must be able to make the meals themselves.

“We change it up as often as we can,” said Darlene Johnson, another director of the program.

For breakfast, the children receive items like oatmeal, grits or breakfast bars; for lunch and dinner the program provides Easy Mac, Beanee-Weenees, Chef Boyardee meals or other similar items. Johnson and Callow try to find affordable items that contain fruits and vegetables as well.

Callow said the program currently only provides meals for children, although they wish they were able to feed entire families. The ultimate goal, however, is to be able to begin more programs at schools that are not currently being served, like Robertsdale Elementary.

Skeptics

Some members of the community have expressed skepticism about the program, Johnson said.

“I’ve had people ask me, ‘How do you know the food gets to the children?” she said. “Well, you know, how do you know it doesn’t? We’re serving these children. From what I’ve seen, it’s mostly single mothers, and I was a single mother for years, so I know their struggles.”

Callow agreed, saying she has faith that what she is doing positively affects the children involved.

“These are good people,” Callow said. “It doesn’t matter why they’re coming to us. The point isn’t to question why they’re here; the point is to help them where they are and give them what they need. We want to be the hands and feet of God.”

Because the program consists only of volunteers and most of the supplies are donated, 100 percent of the money given goes to buying food for the children, Callow said.

Passion and Perspective

The kids receiving the food aren’t the only ones whose lives have been touched by the program. Callow and Johnson both said being involved has given them and the other volunteers new passion and perspective in their lives as well as thankfulness for everything they have. 

“You don’t realize there’s a need that’s out there for children so close to home,” Johnson said. “When I drive to the grocery store now, I often wonder how many homes I’m passing where there’s a kid who doesn’t have food. It just changes your whole perspective of things.”

Tolen said he knows visiting the homes of these children should make him sad, but it doesn’t.

“Even though I know they’re in that same situation I was in, I know that God is going to take care of them, and I’m going to keep praying for them,” he said. “Just as God took care of me when I was in those situations, I know that he’ll do the same for them.”

For more information about donating, volunteering or sponsoring Liberty Church’s Backpack Program, contact Darlene Johnson at 251-752-5445 or Michaela Callow at 850-748-3472.

Donations may be dropped off at Liberty Church, 110 E. Riviera Blvd in Foley. Opportunities to sponsor a child for $20 a month are available, and the program welcomes anyone who would like to volunteer.