Pastor Larry Thompson and the Tree Mount Temple Church were looking for an outreach, a way to serve the community. Be A Champion Inc. was looking for another base in the San Antonio area from which to distribute the many meals that it knows children often miss.
“Grab & Go Thursdays” was the result of the two entities partnering to provide families in the Kirby-to-Converse FM 78 area with a week’s worth of meals for any children under 18.
“We believe in community outreach. We believe in Matthew 25, which speaks of feeding the hungry and clothing those which are naked,” Thompson said. “With that in mind, we were online one day, looking at different entities that provide these services, and came across Be A Champion.
“They were looking for a facility to pass out their food, and we were looking for people to feed the hungry,” Thompson said. “So it was a match made in heaven.”
The church, in its 57th year, has been in its FM 78 location for a little over two years. Thompson is in his eighth year as its pastor.
“We’d been doing this for just over a year right before COVID hit. We’ve been just keeping it going all the way through,” he said.
As March 2020 turned to April and the novel coronavirus was infecting people nationwide, Thompson admitted that the church pondered whether to continue its “Grab & Go” events.
“Ultimately we continued it because, quite honestly, people don’t stop being hungry because of COVID,” he said. “People could not go to the stores. People were trying to stay in their cars and social distance away from other people. So it still worked out.”
Be A Champion, Inc., was founded in 2001 as a youth organization providing summer youth and sports camps. Started by two former University of Houston football players, Jaron K. Barganier and James Hong, Be A Champion uses sports, education, and community service to enhance the development of youth regardless of age, race, gender, religion, or creed.
A 501c3 nonprofit since 2004, Be A Champion has expanded from offering after-school enrichment programs at 11 locations in the Houston area, to a 500-employee organization that serves programs in the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, East Texas, and Rio Grande Valley regions.
The “Grab & Go” program offers an entire week of lunches for each child 18 years or younger that a parent brings with them.
“They show up, we go up to the car and ask them how many kids they are trying to feed,” the pastor said. “They give them a number, we package it up, put it in their trunk, and they go on their merry way.”
Jazmin Diaz has been a Be A Champion site coordinator for three months.
“We give out meals to children up to the age of 18, and we help people in need in our community in these hard times,” Diaz said. “We see it every day, because of COVID.”
Be A Champion contracts with Pepsico for the food it uses to prepare the seven meals each child will receive.
Diaz is the lone Grab & Go worker who meets the drivers when they pull up to the handout site.
“I ask for how many children they have at home under the age of 18,” Diaz said, looking for proof of ages: a report card, a school ID, a birth certificate, “anything with their name and age on it, that makes them eligible to get a meal.”
On this particular Thursday, Diaz brought two workers with her, and was joined by three Tree Mount Temple members — Deaconess Jamie Dukes among them. Dukes is the church food pantry director.
“We’ve been working with Be A Champion for almost two years now,” Dukes said. “It has been such a blessing to be able to help others during this time. Some of them are snacks and some of them are real meals, but they are geared toward children.
“Here at Tree Mount Temple Church, we do provide food when we have it. That’s what the Lord has ordained us to do, to help and feed the hungry,” she added.
Dukes said the meals are a double blessing — not only do they supply children with something nutritious to eat, but the meals relieve families from having to spend money on those meals. That allows families to pay bills, purchase more groceries, or buy essentials like medicine or fuel for cars to drive to work.
“They will come from miles around when they know we’ll feed their children,” Dukes said. “This is almost a beacon of hope; they come here when they know there’s food, and they’ll tell their friends who will come in every Thursday.”
Thompson said church members look forward to serving those who turn out each Thursday.
“They can just drop by, pop their trunk, we’ll put it in their trunk, and we never have to make contact with them,” he said. “The Lord’s just blessed us that we keep it going.”
jflinn@express-news.net
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Partnership to feed area youth seen as a ‘match made in heaven’ - mySA
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