TEMPLE TERRACE — As the sun set on a Thursday evening, Megan McLemore, founder of Food Packs for Kids of Mind Over Matter, backed into a parking space at Hillsborough United Methodist Church on Harney Road, the rear of her silver SUV full of cases of food and drinks.
She stuffed a collapsible wagon with the items, which she had purchased from Sam’s Club after a full workday at Morgan and Morgan, and carted them into the church. Inside, nearly two dozen volunteers unpacked dozens of boxes of food donations and sorted the contents to be repackaged in small paper bags and drawstring backpacks.
By the end of the night, more than 600 such bags would each contain four meals, two snacks, one fruit, a juice and a water.
Friday morning, more volunteers would deliver the bags to eight schools, including Folsom Elementary, Lewis Elementary, Pizzo K-8 and Thonotosassa Elementary.
This scene replays itself each Thursday as the group gathers to bridge the hunger gap the weekend creates for children who rely on school meals for sustenance.
They include more in the bags on long weekends and school breaks.
McLemore, a Temple Terrace resident, started the project in her living room in 2019, purchasing and sorting the food herself and delivering the packs for a hundred kids at her daughter’s elementary school.
She said the idea just came to her during a church service.
McLemore is keenly aware of the struggle many families have. She has been there. She has had to scramble to feed her three children at one point, and was fortunate to have family and friends to help.
But not every family has those resources. So she wanted the program to be a fallback for families like hers.
“A lot of the kids we are giving food packs to right now are homeless or … they’re couch surfing or they don’t have a bed,” McLemore said. “They’re sleeping on the floor and they’re going to school and they want to be good students, but they can’t because they’re hungry and they’re dealing with a lot of adult issues that they shouldn’t have to deal with because they’re kids.”
The COVID-19 pandemic ended her initial efforts. Later, the end of her marriage brought a return to work full time “and so that dream of doing that just kind of faded.”
She lamented the end and craved a restart.
Her dream was resurrected last August by her friend, Jennifer James, co-founder of Mind Over Matter.
“I kept seeing her say, ‘Oh, it’s so important to me. I wish I could do that again.’” James said. “And I’m like, ‘Well, why not? We can help you. I mean, we already have everything. Let’s just do it.’”
James describes Mind Over Matter as a “resource service organization.” She likes the acronym MOM, because she finds it fitting for everything it does.
According to its website, it “provides food, resources, life skills training, and vital social services to help (youth and young adults) overcome challenges and build a path to success.”
Food Packs for Kids is its biggest program, by far, she said. Its growth has been rapid, beginning with just 26 bags at one school and now providing more than 650 bags to eight schools.
James gave credit for that growth to the Nursey Foundation, which recently gave them a $15,000 grant, and to her church, which has donated and where volunteers help sort and pack.
“The church has been instrumental with helping and donating,” she said.
It provides the work space and storage, it helped them get a $1,500 grant from the Conference of the United Methodist Church, “and then the congregants show up and do this,” she said, gesturing to the volunteers.
The program’s impact on hunger is easy to quantify, but other important benefits are less obvious.
Because of the program, students at Folsom Elementary learn the importance of teamwork, the value of giving back to their community, how to be vulnerable, how to communicate their needs and develop trusting relationships with adults, according to Tonya Brinkley Wright, Behavior Resource Teacher and McLemore’s point of contact at the school.
She said the kids learn that sometimes, we all need a helping hand and there is no shame in accepting it. They also see that other people care and take time out of their own lives and use their own resources to help others.
“They are seeing the bags being delivered, they’re seeing the bags being set up,” Brinkley Wright said. “They know we’re not doing this on our own. So that goes in alignment with our school goals and models like teamwork.”
For the past six months, most of that work was done by McLemore and James. Recent news coverage has not only resulted in an influx of donations from their Amazon wish list, but of volunteers.
One couple drove to the church Thursday evening from Madeira Beach after hearing about the program on Fox 13.
McLemore is grateful for the attention, because she believes it will enable them to help more kids. Since the broadcast, they’ve begun serving an after-school program. Walton Academy recently asked for 50 bags beyond the 65 they were already receiving.
As they continue to grow, an increasing need is drivers.
“We have the capability to really help a lot of kids, but we need people to come and pick up the bags and then deliver them to the schools,” McLemore said.
McLemore and James have big goals. They hope to add another 500 bags by the summer and they want to expand into Pinellas County by next school year.
“Partnering with Jen, she definitely has a bigger vision than I do,” McLemore said. “She always tells me to think big and dream big. I didn’t know that this was going to happen. The hurricane definitely had a hand in it. So many people were displaced and our numbers grew so much. And I see that people are just struggling.”
The organization accepts donations via PayPal @mindovermatterhills and via their Amazon wish list at https://tinyurl.com/FP4K-MOM.
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