By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Jack Smith is celebrating two milestones this month.
Today (Dec. 18), the Bowling Green Middle School seventh-grader turns 13 years old. This birthday also marks the 10th anniversary that he is asking for nonperishable food items and hygiene products instead of birthday gifts.
The idea started when four-year-old Jack noticed a long line of cars at the Brown Bag Food Project. He never knew there were so many people who relied on food distributions to feed their families. The boy with a heart of gold wanted to do something to help.
That was the first year he asked his friends and family to bring items for the food pantry.
“I thought about helping other people who don’t have as much as I do. I just wanted to help them,” he said recently about his original motivation. He still feels the same.
Now, for the 10th consecutive year, he will deliver the items to the Brown Bag Food Project near his family’s Sand Ridge Road home.
Each year, he has increased the number of items he delivers. The first year was just a handful, and by 2021, he delivered 243 items. From that point forward, he set a personal goal to double the deliveries each year.
In 2022, he and his family dropped off 505 items, enough to provide for 30 families. Last year, he reached his doubled goal and donated 1,200 items, from soups and ramen noodles to pet food and diapers.
He knows this year’s goal of more than 2,000 items is a big, stretch goal; however, because of his competitive spirit—in part from his years of playing hockey—Jack is determined to succeed again.
Family and friends have been consistent supporters of his birthday food drive tradition, but over the years, the support he gets from people he doesn’t know well or know at all has been the best birthday gift.
“I appreciate that people are willing to help me reach my goal each year,” he said.
He started this year’s drive on Dec. 1 and will continue collecting items until Dec. 24. This year, just like last year, items can be dropped off at the family’s home on Sand Ridge Road or at Grounds for Thought, in a bin near the front of the store on a shelf below the wearable items for sale. Monetary donations are also possible through his mother’s Venmo account: Ellen-Smith-63; just be sure to include “Jack’s Food Drive” in the description.
He uses the money donations to go shopping for additional items to help fill in items that are on the Brown Bag Food Project’s high-demand list, including soup, heat and serve items, pasta and pasta sauce, canned tuna and chicken, oatmeal and cereal, hygiene items (toothpaste, deodorant, laundry pods), diapers and dog food and cat food.
Jack plans to continue the birthday/holiday tradition because the reward of helping others feels like the right thing to do. He’s not sure next year’s goal will be as ambitious as doubling from 2,000 to 4,000, but he won’t settle for anything less than the number of items he delivers in 2024.
