Friendsgiving to Feed event will benefit Secret Meals for Hungry Children

Over the 11 years Susan Daria has been leading a practical-application class at the University of Alabama, various fund-raisers her students have concocted, plotted and carried out include a comedy night, a motorcycle ride and a fishing tournament.

Those fundraisers have brought in $250,035. 25 for Tuscaloosa-born nonprofit Secret Meals for Hungry Children.

The four projects currently in motion, including Wednesday's Friendsgiving to Feed at Druid City Social, have already brought in about $2,000 to $3,000 each in sponsorships and contributions, a key stepping stone, so Daria has a good shot at reaching her dream of $300,000 before her retirement, planned for a year and a half from now. It's an upper-class course, a chance for public relations students to put what they've been studying into practice.

Not all the kids entering know exactly what they're getting into, she said.

"I tell them 'You guys have danced your way into a service-learning and community-engagement-learning class," said Daria, senior instructor in advertising and public relations through UA's College of Communication and Information Sciences. " 'This is a chance to use your PR prowess for good. Hopefully that excites you. If not, this is not for you.' And I'll say this: We've had very few walk out."

The first 2011 pitch from the Alabama Credit Union was clearly an effective one. The credit union created Secret Meals for Hungry Children in 2008 to address the harrowing fact that one in five Alabama children suffers food insecurity. That's defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as being "... uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members, because they had insufficient money or other resources for food." Studies show that in 2021, 10.2 percent of all U.S. households, about 13.5 million, suffered disruptions in healthy eating patterns.

Because Secret Meals for Hungry Children leans on the first part of that name, school teachers, counselors and cafeteria workers identify children in need. Early in the week, such kids may eat everything offered, and still appeal for more. Their gnawing hunger may become evident in agitation, lethargy or other behavioral changes. As weekends approach, those kids may appear to be hoarding food.

Most who are so identified already rely on free or reduced-price meals during the school week, but often go hungry on weekends. Federal studies indicate that in some such households, it's parents who will do without, so kids don't have to; other families endure "very low food security," meaning everyone suffers.

Secret Meals provides weekend supplements with two breakfasts, two lunches, and two snacks, child-friendly and vitamin-fortified. They come equipped also with pull-tab containers, straw-penetrating juice boxes, and bite-sized crackers. Each pack weighs about 3.5 pounds, compact enough to be surreptitiously placed into backpacks on Fridays, maintaining the students' anonymity.

The Tuscaloosa-born program serves about 2,500 kids throughout Alabama and in northwest Florida; roughly 1,500 of the recipients are here in Tuscaloosa city and county. It costs just $140 per child to provide nutritional support for a school year.

Morgan Vanlandingham, one of nine students running Wednesday's Friendsgiving to Feed, was among those who wasn't sure exactly what would be required for Daria's class, though friends had suggested she sign up.

Early in the semester, Alabama Credit Union/Secret Meals representatives came in and talked up the project, and conceptualizing began. Attending UA isn't free. Even those in college thanks to scholarships, grants, or work-study programs most likely come from more stable economic backgrounds than the children Secret Meals serves. So Daria's students may be shocked into action by that one-in-five statistic, and the vicious cycle it represents, as hunger-weakened students struggle to keep up with their studies, much less move ahead.

"It's all around. It might be right next to you without even realizing it," Vanlandingham said.

That eye-opening pitch streamlines Daria's job.

"It's an easy sell for me, as a teacher, to get them jazzed about this project," she said.

Daria provides structure and guide paths for the student groups − between four and nine each year − but leaves them to be the creators, and become worker bees, walking not just familiar environs of The Strip and downtown Tuscaloosa, but around Northport, Moundville, Alberta, or other areas that, as UA students, they may not have known before, to find sponsors and supporters. The broad two-fold mission: Raise funds, and raise awareness of Secret Meals for Hungry Children.

"She really gives you full range to do anything you like, whatever might get the most community involvement," Vanlandingham said. "It's a little intimidating, how much it takes to make (an event) come together. But some of the groups have raised $7,000, so we want to do that, or better."

The students are expected to fully brand their events, create visual identities, and seek out and line up community partners, venues, sponsors and other contributors, then follow through. Alabama Credit Union has been a "phenomenal, class client," Daria said, paying 100 percent of printing and promotion costs, so all the money raised goes into Secret Meals.

"That is something that is very rare," she said. "I remember when I was a student, I had to decide between a can of Beanee Weenees, or my project I was going to print."

And students continually surpass expectations, Daria said. As with local sponsors, venues, and other supporters, they're eager to weave into and strengthen the community fabric.

"Most students, at the core, if you give them a chance to do good for others, they'll take it and run with it," she said. "The coolest thing for me, as a teacher, is that many (former students) go on to work at nonprofits, or other community-oriented jobs."

Anyone who might wish to become a sponsor for Wednesday's Friendsgiving to Feed event − there are various tiers, with the premium platinum set at $700 and up, which could feed several kids for a school year − can contact her at mgvanlandingham.crimson.ua.edu.

Since the practical-application service course began in 2011, more than 700 UA PR students have contributed to providing 70,528 of the Secret Meals packs, feeding 2,032 local kids.

Tickets are available by presale on Venmo at @FriendsgivingToFeed, using description "presale," or at the door. The event's open to people of all ages and abilities. For more on the beneficiary, see Alabama Credit Union's www.secretmeals.org. Those interested in volunteering or fund-raising for Secret Meals can contact Nicole Fulgham at secretmeals@alabamacu.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Secret Meals for Hungry Children fundraiser, by UA marketing students