(LibertySociety.com) – In North Carolina, a teacher, local attorney, and a group of volunteers raised over $103,000 to buy food for more than 5,000 students who might have otherwise gone hungry over the holidays.
Educator Turquoise LeJeune Parker’s quest to help her community started in 2015, with a question from one of her student’s parents. Before winter break that year, they asked her the location of the nearest food bank so their family could eat over winter break. Parker decided then if one family needed help, there had to be others. So, she set to work gathering donations to send each of the kids in her class home with food.
The group’s mission grew to include more families in need every year.
This teacher fundraised more than $100,000 and spent it all on food at Costco to ensure that 5,100 students don't go hungry over the holidays https://t.co/Of4tPTSDyN
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) December 16, 2021
The first year, her goal was to send each of her 22 students “home with a bag of nonperishables.” Parker reached that goal with the assistance of her community and topped that goal in 2016, by feeding a whole grade level of kids. The following year, the food raising events became so popular, groups provided donations for two entire grades at the school.
After raising the large sum of money in 2021, Parker and Attorney T. Greg Doucette traveled to Costco and filled the donated truck to the brim with food. The pair and many volunteers delivered the sustenance to children from 12 different schools in the area, proving people can accomplish great things when they work together.
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