In 2012, when I was ten years old, I had a vision of helping the
food insecure children in our community. I began thinking that I would be
helping 10 children at my elementary school. Today we provide kare kits to over
550 children within the community. The past 11 years of our mission, to provide
kare kits of food to children in our community, has been the most rewarding
thing that my grandmother, Lori Bateman, and I have ever done. It has been an
incredible honor to be able to serve the children in need. It has been an
amazing journey.
Over the past couple of years, we had started talking about how
we might transition the mission if we were not able to continue it. I am going
to be graduating from college in December. In January I will be continuing my
education, working towards my Master’s Degree, while working full time. I am
not sure where this will take me. This and the fact that my grandmother is
approaching retirement age made us come to the realization that we needed to
have a transition plan to ensure the children were provided for.
We spoke with our team members as to whether any of them would
want to take on the responsibilities to manage the mission and no one was able
to take that on. We did have a volunteer, Christopher Hurlbut, who voiced his
and his wife, Tiffany’s, interest in starting a non-profit of their own similar
to Kylee’s Kare Kits for Kidz. We were in support of this. Last summer (2022) their
nonprofit, Bright Eyed, came to fruition. Since their family is from Lunenburg
we made the decision to allow them to take over the Lunenburg schools from us
and last summer (2022) they began providing food to the students in Lunenburg.
In January of this year (2023), we reached out to Christopher to
discuss our concerns about a transition plan and he notified us that they were
looking to expand their mission. Over the past few months my grandmother and I
began to have conversations with Christopher about them taking over the rest of
the schools that we work with.
We were not sure if we were quite ready to give up our entre
mission but after many long heartfelt conversations the decision was made to
transition Kylee’s Kare Kits for Kidz over to Bright Eyed. We were fearful that
if we didn’t take this opportunity to ensure that our kids would still be
provided with their kare kits, that in the future, if it came to the time that
we needed to transition that we may not have anyone interested in taking on the
mission. This was a difficult decision to make but felt we had to ensure that
our mission would continue for the children.
We are working with the Attorney General’s Office, the superior
court and Bright Eyed to have a smooth transition over the summer of 2023.
Bright Eyed will begin to provide kare kits to the students at the start of the
school year in September 2023. We felt that would be the best time to make the
transition.
At the beginning of next school year (2023) families will have
the opportunity to register their children to participate in Bright Eyed’s
program. The guidance offices at each school will have the waiver forms that
families will need to complete in order for their children to participate.
Both myself and my grandmother plan to volunteer with Bright
Eyed to help ensure a smooth transition. We realize that as difficult as this
decision was to make that it is in the best interest for the children. It would
be devastating if something happened to my grandmother or myself and the
mission came to an abrupt end.
We would like to thank everyone who has helped us over the past
eleven years. As a ten year old I certainly never was able to envision how my
mission would grow. We never could have accomplished all that we have without
our amazing team, the volunteers, schools, donors and the community as a whole.
I would like to thank you all for your tremendous support of my
mission to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry. I will be forever grateful
to everyone involved for their support. We would also like to thank Christopher
and Tiffany Hurlbut for being willing to take on our mission and want to wish
them the best in their journey. We would like to ask that you give them the
same support that you have given us over the past eleven years. They can be reached at www.brighteyed.org
With warmest regards,
Kylee McCumber, Founder
