Food Fairy: Decatur teacher’s feeding ministry touches thousands of children

Melissa Penley started the backpack program for Decatur City Schools students, providing them with food for the weekend.

By Catherine Godbey | Living 50 Plus

A chance encounter with a stranger at a church supper led Melissa Penley to start a program that, in the past 14 years, has touched thousands of Decatur children.

“I hate that children are dealing with so many issues these days. I thought if we could just feed them on the weekends, that’s one thing we could help with,” Penley said.

In 2010, Penley, then a reading coach at West Decatur Elementary School, founded the Weekend Backpack Food Program for Decatur City Schools. For those efforts along with her 25 years of serving students, Penley received the 2024 Sen. Arthur Orr Champion for Education Award from the Decatur City Schools Foundation.

“Each week, students’ backpacks are filled with nutritional and easy to prepare foods so that no child is hungry when they are not in school,” said Stevi Price, executive director of the Decatur City Schools Foundation.

The path that led the 52-year-old Penley to establishing the backpack food program began as a child. Penley, a Decatur native, who attended St. Ann’s Catholic School and Decatur High, watched her parents, community leaders and activists, David and Linda Peek, care for others.

“My mom was fortunate to be a stay-at-home home. She volunteered for PACT (Parents and Children Together) from the time I can remember. She was one of the people instrumental in establishing PACT. And, of course, she would have us come out and volunteer for PACT,” Penley said. “My mom and dad taught us we were fortunate and to help others.”

As an eighth grader at St. Ann’s, Penley, thanks to one of her favorite teachers, Ms. Gibbs, felt an urge to pursue teaching.

“I just loved my eighth grade teacher. Seeing her, I decided I might want to do that one day,” Penley said. “In high school, I participated in Junior Achievement and worked with an elementary class at Walter Jackson. That solidified my decision to pursue teaching.”

After attending Spring Hill College in Mobile, where she majored in education, Penley returned to Decatur.

A week before the 1994-95 school year started, Penley received a call from Barbara Sittason asking if she would teach first grade at Woodmeade Elementary. She spent the next week, along with her parents, brother and sister, getting her classroom ready.

“I attended my first faculty meeting two days before school was going to start. When Dr. Sittason introduced me, I just started crying because I was so excited and it had been such a whirlwind,” Penley said.

During her career with Decatur City Schools, Penley, who retired in 2021, taught first grade at Woodmeade Elementary, second grade at Austinville Elementary, third grade at Leon Sheffield Elementary and worked as the reading coach at West Decatur.

While working at West Decatur, Penley, inspired by the backpack program in Huntsville, founded the weekend food distribution in Decatur.

“I was at a Wednesday night supper at Central United Methodist waiting to pay for my supper and met a man from Huntsville who was visiting that night. He asked me what I did and if I had ever heard of a program where they give food to needy people on the weekend. I immediately thought that we needed to do that because I saw the need. I worked at some low-income schools. The children need so much help,” Penley said.

After talking with the church’s pastor, Penley, with assistance from Central United Methodist, started providing 20 to 30 underprivileged children at West Decatur Elementary with food for the weekends.

The first year of the program, Penley mailed letters to churches in Decatur explaining the backpack food ministry and asking them to adopt a school.

Now all the schools, from elementary to high school, including the homebound students who attend some classes at the Career Academies of Decatur, receive weekend food assistance from churches.

“Somewhere in my mind I wanted the program to grow to what it has become, but it has still surprised me, especially with the cost increase,” Penley said.

When the program first started, the cost to feed one child for a month was $15. Now it costs $23. Each bag includes two breakfast items, such as oatmeal or a granola bar, four entrees, such as canned soup or canned pasta, and four snacks, such as pudding, canned fruit and applesauce.

“God has been in this program every step of the way. Every time our little account has gotten low and I start to panic, somebody donated something. God has just worked it out,” Penley said.

Children become part of the program through teacher referrals.

“Teachers refer children who eat every bit of their breakfast and lunch, who would say they’re hungry or would say they didn’t have dinner. When the teachers notice that, they refer the child’s name to the counselor and the counselor calls the family to ask if they are interested,” Penley said.

Along with area churches and businesses, Penley received assistance for the backpack program from her late sister Dalinda Willis, who, along with her husband, personally sponsored Walter Jackson Elementary, her brother David Peek Jr., and her husband and high school sweetheart Jamie Penley.

When Melissa Penley, who Price described as “kind, thoughtful and generous with her time and talents,” learned the Decatur City Schools Foundation named her the Champion for Education recipient, her thoughts turned to her mother.

“My mother volunteered for PACT for 40 years. She won the Champion for Children Award from PACT a few years before her death. I feel very proud about carrying on the lessons she and my dad taught us,” Penley said.

Individuals interested in participating in the backpack program can call Central United Methodist Church.

Since retiring, Penley continues to impact the community, through working part time with the Alabama Reading Initiative, tutoring at Banks-Caddell Elementary and volunteering with the food backpack program. Over the past 14 years, Penley estimated the program has provided 44,000 bags of food to children.