For many on The University of Alabama campus, appeasing hunger is as easy as walking to the nearest dining hall, restaurant or grocery store and giving those handy ACT Cards a swipe. However, many children across the state and country do not have such a luxury. Secret Meals for Hungry Children, a philanthropy affiliate of Alabama Credit Union, is an organization that seeks to help.
The organization is partnered with the West Alabama Food Bank and puts together packs full of nutrition-dense, kid-friendly food and discreetly puts them into the backpacks of children who may not have the opportunity to eat over the weekend. Teachers and school administrators stay on the lookout for children who seem to hoard food towards the end of the week or eat voraciously when they return to school on Mondays. They then send their names along to the Alabama Credit Union for help.
“I think a lot of the time we don’t realize how many people are affected by hunger in Alabama,” said Natalie Kiliç, a junior majoring in public relations. “These children really have no control over their circumstances and are not getting the nutrition they need to grow up healthy. Especially during those developmental years, it’s really important to make sure our kids are getting the nutrition they need to help them succeed in every way possible. So, I think it’s a great thing that Secret Meals for Hungry Children is doing to benefit Alabama and the children in Alabama.”
UA students are a big help to the organization in a number of ways. The goal of Professor Susan Daria’s APR 419 class is for students to split up into groups, design a way to help Secret Meals and carry out their plan. Many students in the class design successful fundraising events, but some take an alternate approach.
Both Natalie Kiliç and Madison Kilpatrick are part of a group that decided to help in a different but lasting way. They discovered that the sorority Alpha Gamma Delta was changing their international philanthropy to focus on the issue of hunger. Their group facilitated a partnership between Alpha Gamma Delta and Secret Meals for Hungry Children.
“We thought it was a perfect opportunity to pair those two organizations together to create a long lasting impact and help Secret Meals for years to come,” Kiliç said.
In addition to aiding this partnership, the group has raised over $1500 for Secret Meals – enough to feed 11 children for an entire school year. Other groups are projected to raise upwards of $2000, but the end of the year’s tallies have not been announced yet.
Professor Daria’s class, APR 419 Concepting and Implementation, has been aiding Secret Meals for Hungry Children for six years now, and it has raised over $100,000 since its inception. Students in the service learning course are thrilled with their success due to the fact that it only takes $140 to feed a child throughout the school year for every single weekend.
The class is held every semester, so students interested in the cause are encouraged to help by taking the course if they can. However, there are plenty of other ways to assist Secret Meals for Hungry Children. Events are held all throughout the year to fundraise and spread awareness for the organization. Secret Meals has a Facebook page that announces various ways to get involved as well.
“It doesn’t take much, and it’s not much of a stretch to actually help get food for these kids,” Kilpatrick said.
