"Friends in Need" help children in need in Sevier County

It's a need that often goes unnoticed and unaddressed: Children who go hungry on the weekends.

But one Sevier County organization is stepping up to help.

Volunteers from three area churches - First Baptist, First United Methodist and Our Savior Lutheran - formed We Are Friends in Need, or FIN.

FIN President Jim Faig says people began noticing the need a few years ago, mostly among migrant and seasonal workers who moved to the Gatlinburg area.

Faig says many of them would live in run-down, weekly motels, some of them with no real kitchen, only a microwave.

"They come in looking for a second chance, a second start, and that's where they start, is in the weekly rental hotels, and that's when they need help," Faig said.

The need often had a huge impact on the children, and that became evident in the schools. Many children would come to school hungry; others might have little or nothing to eat over the weekend.

"If you talk to some of these teachers, they'll tell you stories that'd raise a hair on the back of your neck," Faig said. "It's scary, the conditions that these children live in, it just is scary."

The first school to get help was Pi Beta Phi Elementary. Volunteers got food from Second Harvest and packed up 75 bags to send home with children on the weekends.

"I recall, last year, a third-grade female student who would not eat part of her sandwich, and she would break off part of her sandwich to take it home, either for her to eat later on or for her to give to another family member, and that really is gut-wrenching. to know that, being that young, she represented the kindness and charity to share her food with other people," said Pi Beta Phi Principal Glenn Bogart, now in his 20th year at the school.

The children at his school get nutritious snacks, including oatmeal, granola bars, juice and applesauce, to take home for the weekend.

The students who take part qualify for free or reduced lunch and are also selected by teachers and school staff who see the need.

"The whole child has got to feel that school is an inviting place for learning, teaching to occur and really for the best chances of success," Bogart said. "Someone said, 'a hungry child cannot learn.'"

While the FIN program began with 75 children at Pi Beta Phi, by next week, it will have grown to serve about 230 children at five different schools around Sevier County.

"That's just the way it's grown. It finds you, you don't have to go find it," Faig said.

The churches involved also provide some hot meals for the students throughout the week, and in some cases, clothing, too.