WORDS: Shannon Evans
PHOTOS: Wendy Dewhurst
Every Wednesday and Friday during the school year, volunteers gather at Feeding Empty Little Tummies (FELT)’s building in Palmetto to unpack, sort, count, and pack food.
The warehouse was not specially built for the organization, but Executive Director Jessica Ryherd likes to think it fits. More than 100 years old, the building was once a feed store and later tied to shipping produce by train throughout the community.
It’s either a random coincidence or a special twist of fate: this place has been feeding people for years, and now it helps feed children.
The Weekend Gap
FELT’s mission is to provide weekend food bags for children in Manatee County who may not have enough to eat while they’re away from school. Volunteers pack the bags with easy-to-open, kid-friendly foods and then deliver the bags to local schools, where, every Friday, staff place them discreetly into students’ backpacks.
“Our goal is to help give them some dignity,” Jessica explains. That quiet delivery ensures the kids can receive the food without feeling singled out.
As for the food in each bag, the choices require careful planning. Which foods will the kids actually want to eat? What can they open and prep on their own? What will give them enough food for the weekend—without stretching the budget too far? How can FELT offer a variety, not the same thing every time? Balancing those needs gives Jessica a weekly puzzle to solve.
Good thing Jessica is a problem-solver. Before she became the executive director, she had already begun strengthening the systems that allow FELT to serve children more reliably.
A Manatee County native, Jessica first came to FELT as a volunteer while she was still working at Starbucks. Her mother, Kim Bailey, led the organization at the time, after founder Jane Evers asked her to continue the mission. At first, Jessica was simply helping where she could, but the work quickly began to feel like where she belonged.
“The more time I spent there, the more I wanted to be there,” she says.
She started by communicating with schools and volunteers, and she soon saw how much consistency mattered. Stronger connections with school liaisons led to steadier weekly numbers, which helped FELT better prepare for the children depending on those bags.
As FELT grew, Jessica also started helping with grants and reporting. “At the time, we only had volunteers working on reporting,” she says, “and they were doing the best they could, but the organization was growing quickly. We had gone from feeding kids in two schools in the beginning to about 25 schools, and there needed to be more consistency. As different volunteers stepped into that role and then stepped out, that’s where we were seeing dips in service. So, I recommended that the board hire someone to help—then applied for the position myself.” Later, Kim Bailey moved on to another role, and Jessica was promoted to executive director.
Leading FELT has also changed the way Jessica talks about childhood hunger. The need is not always easy to see, she says, which can make it hard for some people to understand how many local children rely on help.
“People are just in disbelief at the sheer number of kids that we have that need assistance,” she says, “but they might not realize how much the schools provide, outside of education. Title I school students all receive free lunch, not just free breakfast like the rest of Manatee County students. Over the weekend, that support is removed.”
Jessica shares how, when her twins were young, she and her husband faced their own difficult season during the recession. The experience didn’t necessarily mirror the circumstances of every child FELT serves, but it helped her grasp how much parents may carry while trying to keep life feeling steady for their kids.
“Plus, I don’t think kids always know how to communicate, ‘I need more food at home,'” she says—although when one child did just that, it hit Jessica hard.
Because FELT delivers food through schools and the program is designed to protect privacy, Jessica rarely meets the kids who receive the bags. But one recent exception came when she was speaking about FELT’s mission at a Vacation Bible School during its ramen noodle drive. When the session ended, a young girl approached her and explained that she usually received FELT bags during the school year. There was not enough food at home, the girl said, and she asked if she could take some of the ramen noodles with her.
“Honestly, I almost lost it,” Jessica says. “This is a child in elementary school having to advocate for herself to get food.” She wanted to help without drawing attention to the girl, so she quietly asked one of the group leaders to make sure the noodles reached her at the end of the evening.
Jessica tells another story that moved her; at a Chick-fil-A food drive, two sisters walked up with food to donate. They explained to Jessica that they had once received FELT bags themselves before being adopted by their new family, even carefully rationing the two bags across Saturday and Sunday. When they heard about the drive, they wanted to bring the foods they remembered eating.
“They brought ramen noodles and fruit snacks,” Jessica recalls. “Because those were once their favorite things from the bags.”
Many Hands
Today, FELT serves 58 schools across Manatee County and provides food for about 1,800 children each week. Operating on a much larger scale than when the organization first started, the work depends heavily on volunteers, especially to unpack food, pack the bags, and deliver them to schools.
Some volunteers understood the need before they ever stepped into the warehouse—like Kathleen, who knew the program first from the classroom side. “When I was a teacher, I saw firsthand how excited the children were to receive their weekend food bags,” she says. “Knowing that something as simple as a bag of food could make such a meaningful difference in a child’s life really stayed with me.”
One longtime volunteer, Barbara, found a place at FELT and kept coming back. “It breaks my heart that there are children in our county who are not getting enough to eat,” she says. “I wanted to do what I could to help.” Barbara worked at the warehouse so often that one day her husband came by to see what she’d been talking about, then decided to become a volunteer himself.
Another volunteer, Mario, says he and his wife were inspired to get involved with FELT after witnessing its incredible impact. “Our continued commitment stems from the strong community among volunteers, donors, county services, and local businesses,” he says. “The dramatically increasing demand for their services—from 225 backpacks to 1800 backpacks—along with the transparent use of funds is what keeps us coming back.”
As Jessica describes it, volunteers are the lifeline of FELT, and people don’t need a specific background or ability level to help. Besides unpacking and packing food and transporting it to schools, many others help with office tasks, seasonal projects, or food drives. Some take on seated tasks when standing or walking is difficult. If someone wants to serve, Jessica tries to find a role that fits. “If you’re here and you want to volunteer, we will move mountains to create a position for you.”
Volunteers also help FELT add small gestures of love to the food bags. Around holidays, the team puts donated treats, hand-signed cards, or wrapped gifts into the regular packs. Jessica says those extras can have a big impact; although the kids may not know who packed the food and will probably never meet them, they can still feel that someone thought about them. As she puts it, “I don’t believe in just feeding tummies—I also believe in feeding hearts.”
None of this would be possible without community support, which reaches FELT in different forms. The organization hosts several fundraisers throughout the year and holds food drives. Along with sponsorships and direct donations, every gift helps stock the warehouse and make holiday packs feel more personal. Financial donations allow Jessica to buy in bulk, so donated dollars stretch further.
As the only full-time staff member, Jessica juggles nearly every part of the organization, and her workdays rarely look the same. “I drive around picking up food drives,” she says. “I’m often the one communicating with the public, going to networking events, and spending my time with other people just to get the word out about who we are. I’m also the grant writer. I’m processing deposits. My hands are literally in everything.”
Still, Jessica is quick to point out that many other hands have helped shape FELT’s work, including the people who built the organization before she stepped into leadership.
“Between our volunteers, the board of directors, and the great women that came before me, it’s quite the legacy to live up to,” she says. “But in everything I’m doing, I just want to further the mission—and bring along as many people as I can with me.”
How to Help
There are many ways to support FELT, from volunteering in the warehouse to hosting a food drive or making a financial gift. To learn more, visit www.feltinc.org.
