At a food drive held despite the big December snowstorm, Poplar Point/Shadow Point children Michelle Ponder, 17, Madelyn McAteer, 11, and Molly McAteer, 9, collect donations from homeowner Eileen Martini.
There are many charities in Anne Arundel County. Some of the groups collect food to feed needy families and many are run by churches or service organizations. But few are carried out soley by children, as was the case in the Poplar Point and Shadow Point neighborhoods in Edgewater on the Sunday after the big snowstorm when a group of kids carried out their annual food drive to help local families in need.
The idea for the food drive emerged about 10 years ago, when then-teenager Carrie Ponder came up with an idea to get some of her neighborhood friends together to help the needy. She prepared a flyer asking local kids to attend a meeting to come up with a service project for the neighborhood, "just for fun." Carrie and her sister Michelle, about 7-years-old at the time, distributed the flyers to every household with children.
At the meeting that followed, they decided to help out needy families in the area by conducting a food drive.
The girls phoned social services and requested a list of families in the area who might need help with a meal during the holidays. Then they set a date for collection and went about making and distributing flyers to all of the 75 homes in the two neighborhoods.
The food drive became an annual event, with both Carrie and Michelle participating. One year they collected enough food to feed about 35 families.
But as often happens, as the children got older or moved away, the effort waxed and waned.
But this year, Michelle, now 17, decided to revisit the endeavor with renewed vigor. She sent flyers to the kids in the neighborhood, contacted social services and also Hiroko Kolb, at the Head Start program in Anne Arundel County. She got the names of local families in need and also a contact for giving any leftover food or monies to Head Start families.
In previous years, they had worked the neighborhood just prior to Thanksgiving, but this year the Ponder family was in Australia for older sister Carrie's wedding, so they scheduled the event for Dec. 20.
But the day before the slated food collection, the region was socked with nearly 2 feet of snow.
Michelle, figuring that most people would be stuck at home anyway, gathered her posse of seven neighborhood children and set out to make the rounds. They started at 10:30 a.m., and didn't finish until after 5 p.m.
The group included: Gus Kallas, 6; Diego Maldonado, 6; Fabiana Maldonado, 10; Skylor Cortright, 10; Snowy Cortright, 7; Madelyn McAteer, 11; and Molly McAteer, 9.
Normally they would use wagons to do their collection run, but at the time of their Sunday effort, the neighborhood streets hadn't been plowed. Michelle's mom Ellen stepped in and drove the group around in her Jeep.
Ellen said the there were a couple of long driveways, but the kids wanted to try to get to all of the homes.
"A lot were so thrilled that we'd come by. Neighbors didn't think we'd come with the weather," Ellen said.
"It was tough this year, with two feet of snow, but it is worth it," Michelle said. "With some of the longer driveways, it is tough to decide whether to go down, but one of the littler kids said that it is definitely worth it. So it is great to pass along to the younger kids that this kind of thing is worth it," she said.
Once they finished gathering the food, they returned to the Ponder house where they spend several hours sorting all of the food and money.
The neighborhood was very generous. One neighbor gave $100 in cash plus grocery donations.
With the collection effort, the kids were able to provide complete Christmas dinners to 10 families in the Edgwater, Annapolis and Arnold areas.
Michelle shopped for a main course - ham or turkey - for each family, and provided bread, vegetables and sides.
Once each dinner package was ready for delivery, Michelle phoned the families using the information provided by social service staff. She would make arrangements for a convenient time to make the drop off.
"It feels really good. Sometimes you forget about what you have when you are so fortunate. When we deliver the food you see the families and see that they are without some of the things I take for granted. I think it is pretty low-key, but doing something so small is huge and it feels really good to do that for people," Michelle said.
Michelle thinks that this might be the last year for her family to head up the effort. With her older sister living in Australia and Michelle heading off to college next fall, it will be necessary to leave the organizational effort to the next group of Poplar Point/Shadow Point kids. But Michelle is optimistic that the neighbors will carry the effort into the future.
"That was one of the reasons why I wanted the littler kids involved," Michelle said.
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