Rutherford County Schools recently received 58 boxes of prepackaged meals from a countywide outreach event initiated by the county mayor's office.

More than 51,000 meals were packaged and donated to eight organizations, including the Rutherford County Schools' ATLAS program, which provides serves to homeless or displaced students. Each box contained 36 meals to feed a family of six for a total of 12,528 servings of the 51,000 servings. 

The outreach event, which included more than 250 county employees, was facilitated by "The Outreach Program: Meal Packaging" organization out of Iowa. 

"You never know what to expect and what they brought in was amazing," said Karen Meador, a retired Rutherford County educator, who works part-time with the ATLAS program. 

Kim Snell, ATLAS liaison for the school district, was initially contacted in January and asked if the ATLAS program would be interested in receiving the meals. The program provides more than 600 students with weekend food packages as well as a summer food program to help feed homeless students.

A flyer was distributed to schools throughout the district and more than 30 district employees, including Kittrell principal Ynetia Avant and 19 of her staff members, all volunteered their time to work on a Saturday morning at the Lane Agri-Park Center.

"They care about helping in their community," said Snell, when talking about the overwhelming willingness of RCS employees to volunteer their time. "They want to be a part of good things going on in the community."

Snell said others were willing to lend a hand, but the list of volunteers had been filled. 

Snell said the meal packages will likely be included in the weekend food packages they already send home on Fridays, which are provided by area churches and more than 30 local organizations. 

Any remaining packages will be distributed during the summer food program. 

The weekend packages are for individual students, whereas it is Snell's "hope that they will have a chance to share (this) meal together" as an entire family. 

In addition to RCS, The Outreach Program also gave meal packages to the domestic violence program, Greenhouse Ministries, the food bank and other charitable organizations. 

The ATLAS program is in need of donations year-round. 

PHOTOS PROVIDED