JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On Wednesday, March 12, the Jim & Tabitha Furyk Foundation and Nemours Children’s Health joined Blessings in a Backpack at THE PLAYERS Championship Kid Zone for the second consecutive year to address childhood hunger in the community. The organizations packed bags of food for Blessings in a Backpack recipients and invited students and staff from Andrew R. Robinson Elementary School, a Blessings in a Backpack school partner, to enjoy fun-filled activities at the tournament’s Kid Zone.
“Blessings in a Backpack was very excited to be at THE PLAYERS with Nemours and Jim and Tabitha Furyk to really celebrate THE PLAYERS Championship and our partnership to feed over 880 kids through this partnership,” said Erin Kerr, CEO of Blessings in a Backpack. “Throughout the First Coast area, over 5,000 kids will leave school this Friday with a bag of weekend nutrition in their backpacks. So this event was very exciting to have some of those kiddos with us on the course in this amazing environment to take a break from their school day and celebrate being part of the Jacksonville community.”
Among the notable attendees were Lee Smith, Executive Director, THE PLAYERS Championship, R. Lawrence Moss, MD, FACS, FAAP, President and CEO, Nemours Children’s Health, and Michael Erhard, MD, President, Nemours Children's Health, North Florida; Jim and Tabitha Furyk, Jim & Tabitha Furyk Foundation; Erin Kerr, CEO, Blessings in a Backpack and Beth Bush, Director of Athletic Partnerships, Blessings in a Backpack; Mychelle Grover, principal, Andrew Robinson Elementary School and students from the school.
The Kid Zone, located near the tournament's entrance, offered many engaging activities, including a coloring wall and a photo booth. Students also had the opportunity to collect autographs from their favorite golfers at the Autograph Zone, presented by Nemours Children’s Health. Before the school arrived at the event, the organizations and Smith, during his first year as THE PLAYERS Championship Executive Director, packed Blessings bags of nutritious food for local children.
“I LOVE this day,” said a second-grade student at Andrew R. Robinson Elementary School. “I will remember you forever for teaching me about golf!”
The longstanding partnership between Blessings in a Backpack and the Jim & Tabitha Furyk Foundation has significantly impacted the lives of countless children over the past decade, providing vital support for those facing food insecurity. Last October, Nemours Children’s Health joined forces with the Jim & Tabitha Furyk Foundation to extend their reach further, ensuring a hunger-free school year for 880 additional children in Northeast Florida facing food insecurity at local elementary schools, including Andrew R. Robinson Elementary School.
“Nemours is thrilled to be partners with Blessings in a Backpack. Our interests are totally aligned. Nemours is about creating healthy generations of children, and children cannot grow up healthy without food security,” said Moss.
Jim and Tabitha Furyk know all too well the need across the country. “I think all of us can realize that you don't have to go very far from your home community,” said Jim Furyk. “There's a lot of folks out there that are food insecure, and this program basically revolves around our public school system, and kids on Friday afternoons get to take a backpack of food home for the weekend. And there are a lot of families that maybe the kids don't know where their next meal is coming from.”
An estimated one in five children on the First Coast suffer from food insecurity, and while free and reduced lunches are often part of the school day for many students, that doesn’t cover weekends. Blessings in a Backpack’s First Coast Chapter provides food on the weekend to over 4,500 children through 45 school partners in four counties: Clay, Duval, Nassau, and St. Johns. During the 2022-2023 school year in Jacksonville, Blessings in a Backpack secured 175,700 bags of food.
To download photos and videos from this event, click here.
For more information about the First Coast Chapter, visit firstcoast.blessingsinabackpack.org/.
