Youth from Baltimore to Bel Air Collect Food for Homeless Kids

For 14-year-old Tiarra Maxwell, of Baltimore, collecting breakfast food items for area children experiencing homelessness is more than a community service project. For her, it’s the responsibility of the able.

“It's important that we provide food for youth who may not have consistent access to it because not everyone has the same opportunities. They need the food for energy to get through their day. And if we are able to help, it's our responsibility to," said the Western High School freshman.

She, and older sister NaShya, 17, have rallied other girls near their ages – all members of the Rhoer Club affiliated with the Mu Gamma Sigma Chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. – to support the We Cancerve Movement’s annual “Breakfast Bags Bonanza,” a massive collection of nonperishable, individually-wrapped breakfast foods. The breakfast food will be stuffed into brown paper sacks on November 14 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Havre de Grace branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Harford and Cecil counties, and distributed to area homeless shelters and foster care group homes days before the Thanksgiving break.

The Rhoer Club was founded at the national level in 1939 for teenage girls. Rhoer Clubs provide young women ages 13 to 18 with positive experiences in leadership development, academic counseling, personal counseling, mentoring, community service, and rites of passage, according to the Sorority’s website.

"It's important that I help provide food for youth in need because it could have been me. If I was in their position, I'd want someone to help me, too," said NaShya Maxwell, a senior at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute.

One in seven children in the state of Maryland struggle with hunger, according to Feeding America, a nationwide network of member food banks.

Twelve-year-old Alexia Dialinos, of Bel Air, couldn’t agree more with the Maxwell sisters.

In about a month, Dialinos rallied about the 7-South team of 155 students from her 7th grade class at Bel Air Middle School to get behind Breakfast Bags Bonanza. Youth there collected enough nonperishable breakfast food items to stuff 205 bags. Extra food from their collection – including 174 granola bars – was donated to We Cancerve for its November 14th stuffing party.

Dialinos, named in 2018 as a member of We Cancerve’s all-youth board of advisors, pitched the idea to her school’s officials; the idea was adopted as a service-learning project.

Maryland is the first state in the nation to require high school students to engage in service-learning experiences as a condition of graduation. Service-learning is an instructional strategy that combines meaningful service to the community with curriculum-based learning, according to the Maryland Department of Education website.

Fellow board member Abigail Slovick, 17, of Towson, convinced members of her honors art club at Notre Dame Preparatory School to color 50 bags for the event.

Ashlee Brockwell, 13, who’s serving as project leader for this year’s Breakfast Bags Bonanza, worked with her father Jason on a request to Bimbo Bakeries, who donated 600 packs of Lil Bites snacks for the bags. Other donations include a little more than $400 from Bel Air Middle School students and $500 from David Abney of Wise Construction in Dayton, Ohio.

“A special part of this project is the amount of work kids put into coloring the bags,” said Grace Callwood, age 14, We Cancerve founder and Edgewood Middle School eighth grader. She conceived of the idea in 2016 when she held her first event. “Every child who receives one of our bags is getting a bag colored just for them; no two bags are ever exactly alike. I hope that makes these feel special when they receive the bags.”

Students at Harford County’s Fountain Green Elementary School and Harford Day School also colored more than a total of 300 bags.

This year, We Cancerve plans to donate 600 bags to: (Homeless Shelters & Programs) Anna’s House, Bel Air; Eastside Family Emergency Shelter, Rosedale; SARC, Bel Air; INNterim Transitional Housing for Homeless Women & Children, Baltimore; (Foster Care Group Homes & Orphanages) Arrow Child & Family Ministries Arrow Crossroads, Bel Air; and (Community Programs for Homeless & Hungry) St. John’s Cupboard at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Havre de Grace; Havre de Grace Community Center; and The Sharing Table, Edgewood.

To donate to this worthy cause, please contact We Cancerve by November 12th at peoplewhocare@wecancerve.org.

The We Cancerve Movement is a nonprofit organization that creates giving opportunities that can be supported by the community to bring happiness to homeless, sick and foster children.