By Emilie Parten, Reporter for The NavCo Chronicle
In every city, there are low-income families who wonder how they are going to afford food, bills, clothing, or housing. If those families have children, that worry grows into full blown panic when parents are faced with the impending expense of school supplies and other bulk necessities. With nearly twenty percent of Corsicana’s households being below the poverty line (according to censusreporter.org), the trepidation of managing those expenses is very real. In every city, there are people who desperately need help and, thankfully, there are those in our wonderful community who rise to the call.
Backpacks of Love started small, as all wonderful things do, with community donated supplies and backpacks, each backpack hand-packed with everything a child would need to have a successful school year.
Now, fourteen years later, the program receives enough donations to supply 2,700 Corsicana students with the items necessary to survive and the number of volunteers is equally as impressive.
“We only started handing out pre-shrink-wrapped supplies a few years ago,” One
volunteer, Katy Andrews, reminisced. Another volunteer said, when asked about the
amazing community participation, “before that, we would pack 2,700 backpacks by hand
in four hours. It was incredible!”
Latonya Gooden has volunteered with Backpacks of Love for twelve of their
fourteen years. “I had to come for help,” she remembered, “and the look of joy on the
kids faces, it just did something to me.” Ms. Gooden and the other magnificent
volunteers know exactly the impact they are making, each one of them proud to have
helped so many of Corsicana’s citizens. To bring a smile to a child’s face and to ease
some of the burden from a parent’s shoulders, these amazing men and women greet
each person with warmth and compassion. What was just a few people who set out to
help those less fortunate, has now grown into more than thirty passionate volunteers
with a vision to continue growing, helping more and more people along the way
