JMCSS leaders assemble snack backpacks at RIFA

Jackson-Madison County Schools Superintendent Marlon King, his leadership team and the principals from all 26 schools in the district usually gather somewhere in Madison County each week on Thursday morning.

These meetings are leadership meetings in which the principals either are gaining new information from the district leadership or are exchanging information, but either way are trying to become better leaders within their own respective buildings.

Last week’s leadership meeting was different.

Instead of gathering in a JMCSS facility, the leaders made their way to Regional Interfaith Association’s building in Downtown Jackson.

This gathering would be different from all the other ones the rest of the year as this would be a physical effort by the leadership in helping some of the most vulnerable students in the district.

“This is actually the third year we’ve done this,” said JMCSS Chief of Staff Melissa Spurgeon. “But each year when we have our leadership meeting on Thursdays, instead in the week before we get out for Thanksgiving, we come here and do some work here.”

The bulk of the work done by JMCSS’ leaders was done on the assembly line for the snack backpacks.

“These backpacks are important because they go home with some of our students to ensure they have some type of nourishment in their home while they’re away from us for the weekend,” Spurgeon said. “About 1,300 of these go to different homes in our district each week, which is about 10 percent of our enrollment across the district, because if they were to come home after having little or even in some cases no food since they left school on Friday afternoon, they’re not going to be able to learn.”

The timing of this help in the program is also beneficial because JMCSS was out the following week from school for the Thanksgiving holiday.

“Because they’re out all next week, we’re actually planning to give each child two snack backpacks,” said Tracie Barnard, the volunteer coordinator at RIFA.

Spurgeon said the first three years of the leaders getting together to do this has been special.

“We’re all educators, and no one gets into education unless they care about children,” Spurgeon said. “So we come in here and work together helping children on a more important and basic level than helping them get their education.

“We’re glad to do it, and I think that’s why this is always a special day for us.”

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news