Eastern Hancock High School now has a “Blessing Box” outside of Door #20. Jennifer Lightcap, the director of EH school counseling, and Sarah Williams, FFA teacher, put this together for the community. It is a free 24/7 community food pantry where anyone is welcome to take what they need. Anyone is also welcome to donate non-perishable items directly to the box.
Tom Russo
CHARLOTTESVILLE — Sitting outside of door #20 on the Eastern Hancock campus is a large, yellow, wooden Blessing Box. The box is filled with nonperishable foods such as canned goods and crackers, as well as toiletries and household items for families in need of a little extra help.
Blessing Boxes, also known as free pantries or community food boxes, are part of a community service movement seen in many neighborhoods throughout Hancock County.
Eastern Hancock superintendent George Philhower noted Eastern Hancock schools have never had a Blessing Box before, but the school’s Agriculture Department, the Future Farmers of America (FFA) group led by teacher Sarah Williams, supports a food pantry inside the school utilized by students in sixth through 12th grade.
“Our kids are wonderful when it comes to giving back and helping stock the food pantry during school, but this is different,” Philhower said. “The Blessing Box is for anyone who needs it.”
Williams, whose FFA group took over the responsibilities for the indoor food pantry, teamed up with head counselor at Eastern Hancock, Jennifer Lightcap for the Blessing Box project. The two came up with the idea of creating the free outdoor mini pantry to have a bigger impact on families in the district and community members, as well as older students who need food.
“We are trying to combat any hunger food issues we have in our community and we thought a Blessing Box outside of the school would be a great way to do that,” Williams said. “We’ve seen these all around the state and decided it was time to get one to help out our families here.”
Lightcap said she wanted to be part of the project for a couple of different reasons. The first being she liked having a way for adults in the community to be able to get food at their convenience and, secondly, having the Blessing Box right at school will help families save on gas money.
“This just provides them a food resource outside of the school when they are already coming to the school to drop off or pick up their kids,” Lightcap said. “They don’t have to spend money and drive somewhere else when the food is right there for them.”
The ladies were able to get the Blessing Box built for free through a non-profit Lightcap knew about and only needed to find a good place to put it and figure out how to keep it stocked. The women say while the food pantry inside the school will continue to be stocked and help kids who need it, the Blessing Box is something people don’t have to sign up for but can visit and take items without anyone’s knowledge whenever they have a need.
Williams noted while the indoor food pantry is designed for students in sixth grade through high school they have a lot more middle school kids utilize the indoor food pantry than high school students. The ladies feel there might be some high school kids and families who might need help too, but tend to be a little more shy about asking for assistance.
“We feel like some of the high school kids don’t want to have that perception associated with them of needing food so we’re thinking the Blessing Box is something they can utilize without anyone knowing,” Williams said. “While we know there is nothing to be embarrassed about needing food, sometimes teenagers might not understand that.”
Lightcap noted the high school kids who do utilize the food pantry just take quick fix things like protein bars, or instant mac and cheese and not things that they can fix as a meal. They’re hoping the Blessing Box will give the older students and community members who need more than a quick fix the chance to pick up a meal item.
“The Blessing Box will give kids a chance to provide food for the whole family and not just a quick fix for the students,” Lightcap said.
The longterm goal is to get high school students involved with helping to stock the Blessing Box along with the indoor food pantry. Williams said their middle school is doing a great job of helping their fellow classmates and taking advantage of the food pantry and that they want the same type of giving and caring at the high school level as the students move to higher grade levels.
“The ‘take what you need, provide what you can’ philosophy is perfect because we know we do have a lot of families who want to help provide and stock the Blessing Box and food pantry,” Lightcap said.
Williams agreed and noted Eastern Hancock is a tight-knit community dedicated to caring for others, and she has no doubt community members will help keep the Blessing Box stocked for others.
“We really want to look out for each other and this is just a great way we can help do that and have a real impact,” Williams said.
