Legacy Of Former Tech Student Athlete Continues To Help Head Start Kids

A group of Tennessee Tech students and staff gathered some 250 bags of healthy foods this week for Upper Cumberland children in need.

Anna Cooper’s Backpack Buddies started in 2016. Cooper was a Tennessee Tech track and field and cross country student-athlete who helped initiate the program. Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance Mandy Thatcher said when Cooper passed from a rare and aggressive form of cancer in 2019, the initiative was named in her honor.

“There are families in this community that are not able to provide enough food for their kids and it’s important to us as an athletic department to be a part of our community and give back and serve,” Thatcher said. “Especially with the kids.”

Thatcher said Cooper was a member of the Tennessee Tech Student-Athlete Advisory Committee when she had the idea to start the program. Every year since her passing, Thatcher said the committee has completed an annual project for the cause close to Cooper’s heart.

“It’s just a special way to remember Anna and her great idea on how to serve our community and the children in our local community,” Thatcher said.

The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee is made up of athletes from every sport and meets once a month, Thatcher said. Thatcher said the committee executes each year’s project in November.

Thatcher said Cooper originally brought forth the idea during her time as an intern with the LBJ&C Head Start program. Thatcher said that while interning, Cooper noticed food insecurity in a lot of the three and four-year-olds enrolled with Head Start. After Cooper presented the idea, the committee began to fundraise to buy food that they would put into the kids’ backpacks for them to eat over the weekend when they went back to homes where food may be scarce. The bags of food are donated to Head Start and dispersed to kids each week.