CULLMAN, Ala. – Each year, on the second Saturday in June, Mopars (Chrysler-built vehicles) from all over the country fill Cullman’s Depot Park to support Secret Meals for Hungry Children, a charity that serves students all around Alabama and north Florida by discreetly giving out meals for students to take home over the weekends. The car show, Mopars at the Depot, is hosted by Pentastar South Car Club and organized by Brenda and Robert Allison, aided by Alabama Credit Union (ACU) and Cullman Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram (the main sponsor). This year, the show raised $2,500 for the charity.
Said Brenda Allison, “With all the help we were getting, the show was due to be a success. However, the rain showed up and with a storm in the morning, a few hours of sunshine, and then a rainstorm in the afternoon, a few cars did show up. Not the usual turnout, but friends of Pentastar South showed up just because they did not want to disappoint the kids. If you are at all familiar with guys and their cars, getting them out in the rain is a BIG deal. Some of the cars that showed up had never been wet before, which really shows their commitment to the cause. Even though the money raised was not what the club had hoped to raise, they were able to raise $2,500 for this worthy charity.”
Allison met with Scott Spitzer of Cullman Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram and Laurie Legg of ACU (which has run the Secret Meals program for more than 10 years) Monday afternoon to officially present the check.
This marks the fifth year Pentastar South has sponsored Secret Meals. According to Legg, $160 will feed a child every weekend during the school year, so $2,500 will pay for 15 children in the Cullman City and County school systems to eat over the weekend during the upcoming school year. She said Secret Meals feeds an average of 200 students around the county each year.
Additional donations can be made on the Secret Meals website, www.secretmeals.org/. Unfortunately, Secret Meals cannot accept food donations as regional food banks purchase the food packs in bulk or otherwise assemble them using products bought in bulk to keep costs low.
To decide how the meals are distributed, teachers and counselors work together, and sometimes with social workers, to identify students who may be coming into school hungry on Monday mornings or hoarding food to take home on Fridays. They submit a request to Secret Meals asking for the appropriate number of packages, then teachers discreetly slip the packages into students’ backpacks or bags while students are out (which is why the charity is called Secret Meals).
Allison also thanked Pepsi-Cola for providing drinks and Big Easy Mopar Club for cooking Cajun Delights.
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