A dynamic woman keeps her promise to feed kids

Food and Nutrition, Sept, 1991 by Lawrence Rudman

Many people believe the best leaders are those who combine sensitivity and compassion with the desire and know-how to get things done. By any definition, JoeAnna Caldwell is that kind of leader.

Caldwell is a dynamic woman who brings food, love, and a message of hope to low-income minority children living in her hometown of Jacksonville, Illinois. A deeply religious person, Caldwell says both her childhood memories and "a voice from the Lord told me to feed kids.

"Our father died when I was 8 years old and the welfare people wanted us to sell everything and get commodities and move into a housing project," Caldwell says. "We refused. And now my childhood memories are about the sharp pain of hunger."

Her mother grew sweet potatoes, she recalls. "My sister and I used to bake them overnight next to the furnace, wrap them in newspaper, and take them to school. During lunch we'd eat them in the restroom with our feet up so none of the kids would see us."

One day walking to school she smelled bacon cooking. "Tears began to roll and I remember saying over and over to myself, 'I wish someone would adopt me. I wish someome would adopt me.'"

She says she made up her mind then that when she grew up and married she would try to adopt and feed children.

Today Caldwell feeds not only her own nine children--two of whom are, in fact, adopted--she also runs a program called "Saturday's Children" that provides free sack lunches to more than 200 children each week.

"I wrote letters

to everyone..."

Jacksonville's shcool lunch program has come a long way since Caldwell was a little girl. Through the National School Lunch Program, free and reduced-priced lunches are available to students who qualify for them based on need. But Caldwell was concerned about children who did not have enough to eat between lunch on Friday and Monday.

"I've always thought there was a need," she says. "Kids have school lunches during the week, but what about the weekend?" She decided to see what she could do.

"After telling my family we'd have to cut back on spending, I wrote letters to everyone, including social clubs and organizations telling them about Saturday's Children," she explains.

With help from people such as school board president Dr. Robert Crowe, who is superintendent of schools for Illinois' District 17, Caldwell opened a bank accont for contributions. A local auto dealer donated a used station wagon for food pickup and deliveries, and the Kiwanis Club paid for the car insurance. Caldwell then mobilized volunteers to make up posters and solicit food from local businesses.

More than 40,000

lunches later...

Since 1986 when she started "Saturday's Children," Caldwell and her volunteers have packed nearly 40,000 bag lunches. Every Friday night, they gather at Jefferson Elementary School, which is near Caldwell's house and not far from the designated Saturday distribution points.

As some volunteers unload boxes of bread donated by places like the local Sunbeam bread distribution center, others carry in crates of fresh fruits and vegetables and boxes of peanut butter, jelly, and cookies.

They organize themselves into several assembly lines making peanutbutter-and-jelly or sometimes ham sandwiches; washing and cutting up fresh vegetables; and packing oranges, fruit juice, and cookies into lunch sacks donated by McDonald's.

An hour later the lunches are ready for the volunteers to load into the Saturday's Children station wagon. The next day, as she has for the past 4 years, Caldwell will make the Saturday deliveries herself.

Dr. Crowe was instrumental in helping Caldwell start Saturday's Children in 1986 and is still a strong supporter of her efforts. "A lot of us do volunteer work," he says. "It's a fine thing to volunteer once in a while--like at the Salvation Army--but it's something else to sign on to a commitment for several years.

"This woman and her volunteers make more than 200 sandwiches every week. We are dealing here with hungry kids. And JoeAnne Caldwell is doing something about it, almost singlehandedly."

"I give lunches,

clothes, and hugs..."

It's more than just bag lunches that Caldwell gives to the children. "I can always tell a child who is not getting enough parental love," she says. "Children who are not used to hugs hold themselves stiff. So I give lunches, clothes, and hugs."

As the first African-American elected to the school board in Jacksonville, Caldwell brings a first-hand perspective to the needs of the city's low-income minority children and their families. Sometimes she hears people say that the children's parents should try to do more for them, and she says she both accepts and rejects this criticism. Ultimately, it's the children she's concerned about.

"Sure I'm angry at parents who are irresponsible," she says, adding that many others are doing their best. "But," she says, "I love the child. I tell people that the same hungry child who doesn't get a lunch and a hug today might someday rob or rape you."

When Caldwell is not being "the sack lunch lady," as the children call her, she's a caseworker with the Morgan County Big Brothers and Big Sisters Association in Jacksonville.