The “No Kid Hungry” project was first announced during Clinton County’s school system district wide pep rally on September 24 and since then the project has taken off and will truly be something the community can be proud of.

Mrs. Melissa Tallent, teacher at Clinton County High School, first came up with the project for her Advanced Placement classes. Seeing the overall interest in the project, it became a school-wide project and is now a district-wide project with help from other schools in the county.

This Thanksgiving holiday, more than 200 people will be fed a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal, including cornbread dressing, green beans, biscuits, gravy and of course turkeys.

While many will be enjoying the Thanksgiving meal in a fellowship sharing setting at the Clinton County High School cafeteria, many others who are shut-in or unable to drive, will be afforded the chance to enjoy a thanksgiving meal via special delivery.

As with any “first-year” effort, the Thanksgiving meal project hasn’t been without a few snags, but event organizers seem to now have everything under control.

Tallent said she was in a bit of a panic earlier last week when she realized a corporate sponsor she had obtained to donate the turkeys fell through.

“I contacted them to see how many turkeys we had and they told me zero,” Tallent said. “Kiley (Tallent’s daughter) went to church and she told the church that we were running low on turkeys, so yesterday afternoon we had 41 turkeys. So we are prepping 41 turkeys, several people are going to make biscuits and the kitchen staff here are going to make the cornbread for the homemade dressing.”

The kitchen staff at the high school, according to Tallent, is doing this on their own time and volunteering their services.

From the amount of donations from various organizations and people in the county, the community Thanksgiving dinner will have plenty of food for those who might not otherwise have a home-cooked meal on Thanksgiving Day.

“From being in the hole on Monday (November 18) until I checked today (November 25) we had more than $2,000 in donations,” Tallent said. “My greatest blessing is if you feel compelled to do something or if God leads you to do something then do it and He will provide the means. It’s been a very humbling experience for me.”

Also on the menu for Thursday will be home made desserts donated by bakers in the county.

“We have almost 50 homemade desserts coming in,” Tallent said.

Tallent said many of the kids involved in the “No Kid Hungry” project also works in the food pantry and last Wednesday the students took down more than 170 names of people who needed to be picked up or who needed their meal delivered on Thursday.

“With those names they collected, we have more than 200 who need to be picked up or food delivered to them this week,” Tallent said.

With any major project and with this project being held on a holiday, Tallent said she was worried about not having enough people to help dish out the food and help with deliveries, but once her list of volunteers was complete, she said she was overwhelmed at the number of people in the county who have gotten behind and supported this project.

“Some of the students said doing this and being around the people in our community is so much more important than three or four or 10 of us sitting around our own family table,” Tallent said. “Several people are actually giving up their Thanksgiving traditions and things like that to come and work for something in the community. It makes me very proud. A whole community coming together like this is amazing.”

The project has several churches in the area willing to use their vans to pick up those who need a ride to the Thanksgiving meal and Tallent also said many people have said they will deliver meals in their own vehicles on Thursday.

“We don’t care to deliver to the elderly who are shut-in, but I think Thanksgiving, as important as it is to have a meal, it’s important that people are together and they socialize and see the value in being with other people. Seeing this, they will see the value of a community. I’m hoping that people who cannot drive will simply call us and will come out and spend an hour with us socializing and being with other people. If you go back to the first Thanksgiving, it was about coming together between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims. One side brought what they had and the other side brought what they had and they came together. That’s what I’m hoping this Thanksgiving will do.”

Along with the community supporting the cause, Tallent said everyday she gets a new student who wants to help.

“We all wear the orange shirts to promote the project and now we probably have more than 100 shirts out there, so we probably have a fourth of the high school student body helping with this in some capacity,” Tallent said. “I have around 60 kids signed up to work one, if not both days. The kids are preparing the food, serving the food, they will do the cleanup, so the kids have taken charge and they have taken such pride in doing this and giving up their time which I think is amazing.”

Getting involved in this community wide project has not only been an eye opener for Tallent, but she said the real-life lessons the students are learning is invaluable.

“They can sit in a class room for 20 years and they will never get what they’ve learned with this project, out of a textbook,” Tallent said. “I had a student tell me their life and their view on life had forever been changed and working this and with the food pantry were some of the best days they have ever had. Education smarts can only take you so far. You have to see the value in your community and what it does by giving back to your community.”

If anyone is interested in volunteering for “No Kid Hungry” Thanksgiving Meal, can contact Tallent at the high school at 606-387-5569.