5-Year-Old Teams With First Lady For Food Drive

A Cookeville woman and her daughter are partnering with Tennessee’s First Lady to collect food this week.

Five-year-old Madelyn Whittemore heard about the Tennessee Kids Serve Summer Challenge. The purpose of the challenge is to instill in kids a heart for service and use a small portion of their summer break to serve others. Madelyn’s mom Amber Whittemore.

“We just wanted to make a bigger impact,” Whittemore said. “So instead of just donating some cans to our local pantry or something like that we wanted to do a huge food drive and make a much larger impact for the community.”

Residents can drop off food at Jason Lewis Automotive in Sparta this week. The food will benefit Seeds Of Hope. Whittemore said the food drive will feed people and unite the community.

“I feel like that’s the least we can do to bring our community together,” Whittemore said. “To help the homeless and the people that can’t necessarily afford the food and necessities.”

Whittemore said the goal is to get as much food as possible.

“We don’t have a certain goal,” Whittemore said. “We just want to get as much as we can to the Seeds of Hope and hopefully bring more attention to that.”

Seeds of Hope is a non-profit that provides temporary shelter for individuals. They will be taking the donations from the food drive. Requested items are canned foods that have a pop tab on them.