2024: Looking Back

Have we all gotten used to writing 2025 as the year? Well, don't let our belated annual report throw you off your game! When I think back to last year, I remember the pictures showing all of the smiling faces that helped us bring it all together. So - this year, we celebrate our donors and volunteers: those who are pictured, and those who gave in secret. Thank you...thank you...a million thank you's! We'd like to highlight all of the groups who hosted private bagging events, and those who hosted snack items collection drives for Snacks in Sacks. Here are just a few....

Super Troop & Power Pack 194 sponsored our December bagging event and St. Martha Community hosted and contributed to our 2,179 bag count.

Bullitt East National Honor Society and Beta Club assembled more than 200 snack bags!

A loyal supporter hosted a bagging event for her neighborhood, donating 212 snack bags (top), and an elementary school classroom had a bagging party after learning a bit more about homelessness and food insecurity (bottom) for World Kindness Day.

The Picklesimer family took time to make snack bags during the hectic season of giving.

St. Edward's Cub Scout Pack 175 made 400 snack bags.

Girl Scout Troop 1817 and Troop 498 (pictured respectively) gathered with hearts of service during their respective Christmas parties and bagged donated snacks for outreach.

Primrose School at Old Henry Crossing and Primrose School of East Louisville collected THOUSANDS of snacks items to contribute to our December bagging event.

Ahrens Work Transition Program was able to continue their support of Snacks in Sacks for a 4th year thanks to a generous donation from KnowFully Learning Group, culminating in 1,236 assembled bags.

Homeland, a recognized student organization at UofL, gathered 60 volunteers together and made 317 snacks bags for homeless outreach.

Old Mill Elementary's Kindness Club thought of the homeless and made 114 snack bags. The group also donated extra snack items collected for the cause.

AAA Shively (Rockford Lane) put together more than 100 snack bags for the local community.

Down Syndrome of Louisville invited Snacks in Sacks board members and our families back for the 3rd year. Together we made 316 bags at their November ThanksGIVE party.

The Kentuckiana Alumnae Chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi gathered together at Family Realty to share stories while putting together 204 snack bags.

St. Nicholas Academy hosted a snack food items collection and donated more than 800 items to Snacks and Sacks.

We'd also like to thank Sacred Heart Model School 2nd grade for hosting a private bagging event (50 bags), as well as Wheeler Elementary and Fern Creek Elementary for collecting more than 2,000 snacks items for our March bagging event. We also had significant help from groups of student volunteers including Trinity High School, Seneca High School's NHS, Barret Middle School, and more. Getting the kids involved in giving back means to much!

Thank you all SO VERY MUCH!!!! It's the little things as much as the big things that keep this mission moving forward. Monetary donations, snack item collections, bagging events, corporate grants...it all works together to support our local outreach groups.

Grants like these help us meet the ongoing needs in the community. Thank you Walmart Neighborhood Market on Ruckriegel Parkway in Jeffersontown for supporting us through the Spark Good local grants program. Thank you Spectrum/Charter Communications for supporting us through your Spectrum Employee Community Grants (SECG). And thank you to Sam's Club in Jeffersontown for the generous grant to help us continue our work.

A HUGE thank you to The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels for sponsoring our September bagging event at Fern Creek United Methodist Church. The grant, provided through the Good Works program, enabled us to assemble 2,315 bags for outreach. We are also extremely grateful for the large group of volunteers that came from Christ Church United Methodist to help us with the fun work of putting the snacks into all of the bags. We had first-time volunteers show up to the event, and we welcomed the return of many friendly and familiar faces.

St. Michael Catholic school hosted our June event. Thanks to our volunteers and Amazon Wishlist shoppers, we made 1,145 bags.

All together, we were able to give 11,696 snack bags to our outreach crews. And now, we'd like to give a BIG shoutout our partner outreach crews that work hard to get these bags into the hands of those in need: Street Reach, The Forgotten Louisville, Share the Love Outreach, Jacob's Ladder, Keep Louisville Warm, Southend Street Angels, Homeland, and Kept, Inc.

We launched a fundraiser on our Facebook page last December to collect funds for the purchase of sterno can heat sources for those surviving on the streets in the frigid temperatures. And you guys showed up! We were able to send 16 cases to Street Reach for distribution throughout the camps. That's 192 cans - each providing 6 hours of heat. We all remember how miserable December and January felt outside. Thank you for going the extra mile to help the less fortunate.

All of our supporters are absolutely amazing!!! We appreciate the PayPal and Venmo donations. We are grateful to those who send donations through our Amazon Wishlist. We see those of you who send us spare change through Kroger Community Rewards. Throughout 2024 we received a total of $153.25.

(If you would like to enroll, simply login to your Kroger account, go to My Account and select "View Community Rewards" towards the bottom. You can either search for Snacks in Sacks Inc. by name or use the code BL609 and then click "Enroll.")

We also collected your spare change through the Walmart Round Up Program. Spark Good Round up is a program that allows Walmart.com and Walmart app customers to round up their purchase total to the nearest dollar at checkout and donate the "change" to a charitable nonprofit of their choice. We received deposits totaling $103.66 last year.

I'd call that a SUCCESSFUL year!!! Now let's bring all of that energy and enthusiasm into 2025! Maybe we will see you at 9 am for our February 15th bagging event at The Academy for Individual Excellence. Until then, have a great day!

Bring up a child by teaching him the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn away from it.

I just LOVE to see when children are taught the importance of thinking of others. Part of the Snacks in Sacks mission states: "Our events create opportunities for volunteers of all ages and all incomes to contribute to our local communities." We truly want to enable others to "to express their caring through sharing." And once again, you all have shown up!

St. Nicholas Academy invited me to come and speak to the student body about the homelessness in Louisville. The staff members and administration wanted the children to understand the need that exists all around us as well as what organizations like ours (and donors like them) do to help make a difference.

I helped them to understand that there are roughly 2500-3000 homeless people in our local community (men, women, and children). Some of those are able to stay with family for periods of time and some couch surf (move from house to house wherever a spot is available). Some of those are able to stay in a shelter. But many people are still surviving on the streets.

I asked the children to raise a hand if they had ever noticed a tent on the side of a road - like maybe on their way to the Louisville Zoo - or a sleeping bag under an overpass. I mentioned that while new laws may mean that we don't see people living on the streets as much anymore, they are still there. In fact, there are approximately 600 homeless people on the streets at any given time.

I began to summarize the story Stone Soup by Marcia Brown. I told the students that our different food categories were like the different ingredients that the travelers added to the stone soup in order to turn the soup into a feast "fit for a king." The neighbors in the impoverished town did not believe that had enough food to provide a meal to share with the hungry travelers. And not a single neighbor did have each ingredient necessary. However, as one brought the salt and pepper, another brought carrots, and another brought cabbage, and another brought meat, etc. In the end, they had worked together and were all able to enjoy a hearty feast.

And so, during the month of October, the St. Nicholas families chipped in what they could. And I returned to watch the students carefully box up their snack-sized donations: 44 proteins, 151 breakfast items, 90 fruit items, 168 chips, 222 crackers, 106 treats, and 20 gallon bags. That's a grand total of more than 800 items for homeless outreach!!! Thank you all! We feel so honored each time that a business, school, family, individual, or academic / athletic group chooses to support our cause.

And...I have to brag...these kids knew that they could offer more help. So - they carried the boxes and bins to my van. I'm just so impressed!

Did you notice something is that last picture? Don't worry - the shoe was returned to its rightful owner. Haha. I had to include this final image because I will always smile over how excited this young man was to use a dolly for the first time. I just love the enthusiasm of our youth. Isn't it inspiring? Keep doing great things, kids! We're all cheering you on!!!

AAA Comes to the Rescue!

A huge thank you to the AAA team from Rockford Lane in Shively for the carload of snack bags! We appreciate your spirit of service! The need is ongoing. Thank you for helping to provide snacks for our neighbors experiencing food insecurity.

Snacks bags are easy and fun to make for groups of all sizes. If you are interested in making bags with your group, visit our website for instructions and to sign up: snacksinsacks.org/support-us

Thanks for your support of Snacks in Sacks!