One of the most important assists the Angelina College Lady Roadrunner basketball has recorded thus far didn’t occur on a basketball court.
On Friday, the Lady ‘Runners arrived en masse at the Christian Information Center in Lufkin to provide helping hands in an effort to feed the community. The CIC is the area’s largest food pantry; it’s the only one open five days per week, feeding approximately 14,000 people each month.
With shipments of food items rolling in every day – the Center estimates two million pounds of food per year – and with a small volunteer staff consisting of perhaps five people, the CIC members are kept busy sorting, bagging and distributing.
Executive Director Yulonda Richard said the mission is to ensure as many people in the community as possible don’t go hungry.
“There are kids who go home on weekends and never really eat again until they go back to school on Monday,” Richard said. “We’ve made it possible for many years to feed kids over the weekends. We do around 450 bags per week all year long. We have volunteers who come and help assemble, and other volunteers who help deliver to the schools. We do all of Angelina County all the way down to Zavalla, and we just added Pineywoods Community Academy.
“A lot of the people we see are senior citizens who have reached the point in their lives where they’re trying to stretch their paychecks between medical expenses and living expenses. It should come down to that, but it does, and we’re trying to help them make the grocery money stretch as far as possible with these donations.”
Richard said having the Lady Roadrunners helping with the load was a boost for both morale and production.
“What the girls did today was help feed the community, which is exactly what God tells us to do,” Richard said.
“‘What you do to these, you do unto Me.’ We have nothing but volunteers; I might have five people total on our staff. Without the support of the community, our center would have to close its doors.”
AC head coach Byron Coleman said his players were more than willing to help, but seeing the CIC’s efforts in an up-close setting was an eye-opening experience.
“When the girls got here, the CIC staff gave them a little talk and a tour as part of the educational experience so the girls would know why they were here,” Coleman said. “I think a lot of them were shocked to hear how many people in this one community don’t get enough to eat, and that was plenty of motivation to get them moving. Once they understood the reasons behind everything, they went full-blast toward getting work done.
“One of the volunteers told me that what the girls did just this morning would have taken the staff all week. They don’t have enough help to do what they do, and our girls were proud to help.”
Richard called the players’ arrival “a blessing” and said she hoped more young people would get involved.
“I hope these girls got as much from this as they gave to us today,” Richard said.
The e-mail address for AC’s Sports Information Director is gstallard@angelina.edu.
