Friday was Feed the Need day at Dayspring Christian Academy in Blacksburg.
From 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., 140 students, teachers, parents and staff of the independent, parent-owned K4-12 Christian school packed 10,000 meals in bags and boxes to feed hungry children. The meals filled up 42 boxes with 8,500 of the meals going to Haiti where they were to be distributed to schools and orphanages. The remaining 1,500 meals were delivered to the Roanoke Rescue Mission for local distribution.
Shannon Koene, a Dayspring parent, served as the director of the ambitious event, which saw meals of rice, soy, powdered vitamins and dehydrated vegetables bagged and boxed.
The school’s families raised the funds to cover the event’s costs. Money left over after the day was used to help defray the school’s tuition costs.
Dayspring Christian Academy currently serves over 80 families across the New River Valley. Over the past 35 years, Dayspring has graduated more than 350 students.
The school’s mission is to meet the academic, physical, and spiritual needs of each student with excellence. Part of that goal is a major emphasis on serving others both within the school and in our community. Older students are regularly involved with younger students as reading buddies and classroom helpers. In the fall, all of the students and teachers participate in Service Day, we by going out into the community and performing such service projects as visiting nursing homes, collecting food for the local food pantry and performing yardwork for the elderly.