A HUG and a SANDWICH

There are suburban neighborhoods where generational poverty affects all ages. Despite relief organizations and groups, poverty seems to thrive. Imagine not knowing if you can feed your child!

A Lee’s Summit couple learned from a friend at The Summit Church about their summer lunch program for children eligible for the National School Lunch Program. “We can do that!” Kathy and Bruce Wittman, of Holy Spirit Parish, said. That was in 2015.

Seven years later, the summer lunch program they started served

11,998 lunches over the 12-week summer break in 2022.

“We are licensed and inspected by the Health Department regularly. We start the first day of summer vacation and serve the kids Monday through Friday,” Kathy said. “We work with school resource officers, police departments and health agencies. Donations come in from our parish, from other parishes or churches and from individuals. One hundred percent of the money coming in goes to the lunches. We get our lunch foods from Price Chopper at cost! We’re paying $2 per sack lunch.

“We try to use non-staple foods as often as possible, and thanks to the generosity of our parish, we can.”

Seventeen people, including Father Joe Sharbel, the pastor, on his day off, deliver sack lunches to five locations daily through the summer.

Kathy explained, “We gather in the parish kitchen and fix ham and cheese or turkey and cheese sandwiches, Gogurt (the yogurt in a tube), chips, cookies, grapes or fruit chews, and a juice drink. Also, we learned from Dr. Edna Curry, a pediatrician friend of ours, to ‘add a toy.’ She always gave a toy to patients at the end of the visit. She died last year and left seven or eight weeks of toys for the kids. We used some of them in the lunch sacks, and people in our parish picked up where she left off. The children get excited over the toys!”

If you are interested in volunteering for this program or thinking of starting a similar program, contact Kathy Wittman, kathywittman1957@ gmail.com

When asked for a favorite happening of the past seven summers, Kathy said, “We’ve met all sorts of people we wouldn’t have known.”

Bruce said, “Remember the little girl who needed a hug more than a sandwich?”

“Oh, yes!” Kathy exclaimed. The child’s mother was present and gave her permission.

Kathy and Bruce both hugged her and, with the Crayons in her lunch sack, she colored a picture for the couple, which was hung in the parish kitchen.

The Wittmans were recognized by Bishop Johnston and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph for their lunch program at the Bishop’s Recognition Mass on Aug. 28, 2022, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.