MORGANTOWN – The Rev. Kevin Cain received a big check to put in his backpack Wednesday morning.
Cain – “Rev Kev” to all who know him – is the founder of The Source, a backpack feeding program for youngsters from needy households which started up in 2010 in partnership with Skyview Elementary School.
It was all about partners at Skyview on this morning, as students, teachers and school district representatives assembled in the gym for some news straight from the source – about The Source.
“Guess what?” Amelia Courts asked, smiling. “You guys won.”
Skyview Elementary students celebrate the news that The Source, an outreach program based at their school, earned a state award Wednesday from the Education Alliance for the partnership.
Courts, who is president and CEO of The Education Alliance, a nonprofit in Charleston that recognizes such collaborations as the above, was the one wielding the big check.
She announced the inaugural “Hope for the Future: School-Business Partnerships of the Year” award to The Source – which the alliance bestowed with the help of Hope Gas, the energy utility.
“A great school needs a great business partner,” Courts said. “The collaborations are vital for our communities. This one is especially vital for our kids.”
The Source-Skyview partnership was among 80 such collaborations vying for the big prize.
Monongalia County Schools’ MedEd partnership with West Virginia University Medicine was also a nominee.
Cain was thinking about growling bellies when he came up with the idea for The Source 16 years ago.
Food insecurity abounds in West Virginia, he said. Even in relatively prosperous Mon County.
To be food insecure means you’re simply unable to get enough on your plate to sustain yourself nutritionally.
Which makes it just as clinical – as it is socioeconomic.
Cain , who pastors at Kingdom, the church he founded in Westover, is a longtime advocate of youth enrichment programs across Morgantown and Mon.
The clergyman knew kids from needy households could rely on breakfast and lunch at school.
But what about the weekend?
With the blessing of the district and Skyview, Cain set up the program, which has distributed more than 3 million nutritional offerings, since – “And we’re serving almost 600 kids every weekend,” he told Board of Education members at a meeting three weeks ago.
The program has since branched out Mylan Park and Mason Dixon elementary schools, along with Clay-Battelle Middle-High School and the EXCEL center.
Mentorship programs are now also part the menu of The Source.
The validation for everyone involved, the clergyman said, is especially heartening.
Cain appreciates that all the volunteers associated with The Source are being acknowledged by the alliance for their empathy.
“We don’t receive a single government dollar,” he said previously at that same BOE meeting.
“There are so many good people giving of their time, their talent and their treasure.”
Rev Kev’s sermon of gratitude at Skyview on Wednesday was true to school.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, for letting us be part of your daily lives,” he said. “It’s an honor.”
