CULLMAN – The Red Door Café had a great turnout Saturday morning at their free pancake breakfast for donations to Knapsacks for Kids. Cullman County folks turned out to enjoy stacks of delicious pancakes all while supporting a great cause. Knapsacks for Kids is headed up by Melissa Betts. The program gives kids from low-income families who do not receive adequate food a knapsack to take home each weekend. The knapsacks contain enough food for the weekend and the proper nutrition these children need.
The owner of the Red Door Café, Bill McCartney, explained the inspiration behind the event, “Part of our core mission is to be a community funding resource and we had been talking to Melissa Betts at First Methodist Church. She had started a Knapsacks for Kids program about three years ago; there’s about 700 kids in the whole county that get a knapsack full of food to take home with them on the weekend. Many don’t have food to eat on the weekend, they don’t have anything to eat on the weekend, that’s why they’re on the low-cost or free lunch program and it’s just a way to help out. It’s just part of our core mission and whether it’s collecting coats for kids in the winter for kids who don’t have coats or raising money for other nonprofits, that’s why we’re here.”
Conversation and community spirit filled the emporium even before 8 a.m. and way past 10 a.m. A patron of the Red Door, Lucy Greenwood, said, “We just wanted to come out and support the Knapsack program and all the little children that will be utilizing it over the weekends.” Greenwood is active in the Knapsacks for Kids program at her church, Vinemont Baptist.
The charity event procured a total of $1,354 in donations for the program. This a great step in the direction to end child hunger in Cullman County. “We are just so thankful to the Red Door and to Bill McCartney for having this vision of being able to offer a free pancake breakfast to the community to support a cause, and we were so thankful that he picked Knapsacks for Kids. We’ve really worked at publicizing and we’ve had lots of friendly faces come in and drop off donations,” stated Betts. “Our real need is just to raise awareness in our community to end child food insecurities. We’re excited to do that and hope that we’ve been able to shed some light on the real issues.”
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