Runners take off to start the Fill a Tummy 5K and One-Mile Fun Run in Livingston on Saturday, April 7.
Lane Herrings finishes strong Saturday in the 5-kilometer race at the Fill A Tummy 5K and Fun Run. Lane, 5, attends South Live Oak Elementary.
LIVINGSTON -- After a stormy night in south Louisiana, the rain cleared just in time for runners to stretch their legs in the Fill A Tummy 5K and One-Mile Fun Run in Livingston on Saturday, April 7.
More than 200 people registered for the run, which was put on by Integrity Insurance of Livingston. Proceeds from the fundraiser — which came to a whopping $12,500 — will go toward the Full Tummy Project of Mighty Moms, a local non-profit food pantry that focuses on child hunger.
This is the second time Integrity Insurance and Mighty Moms have teamed up for a fundraiser. In 2015, the two organizations joined forces to put on the first 5K, an event that had 256 registered runners and raised more than $12,000.
Though the weather threatened to put a damper over Saturday’s fundraiser, it held off just long enough for everything to run according to schedule, much to the relief of the organizers.
“We were just praying the rain would stop by the time we started,” said Mighty Moms Executive Director Dawn Birdsong, “and it has.”
Starting at Circle Park Drive, runners put on their white “Fill A Tummy” T-shirts and warmed up with the one-mile fun run, which took them in a wide circle down Red Oak Road, Iowa Street and S. Tulip Street before bringing them back to Circle Drive.
A few minutes after the last runner crossed the finish line, participants lined up for the 5K, a 3.1-mile trek that started and ended in the same spot as the fun run but took them across and back over Highway 63.
After the race, Integrity Insurance owner Sarah Davis presented Mighty Moms co-founders Beth Clark, Birdsong and others with a giant check for $12,500 — all of which will go toward feeding hungry children in the Livingston Parish Public Schools system.
The Full Tummy Project is the one Mighty Moms has been most known for since the organization began in 2010. Each Friday, volunteers pack hundreds of food bags that “delivery moms” bring to schools for students whose families need extra assistance providing meals.
Last school year, Mighty Moms delivered 10,811 full-tummy bags to 43 Livingston Parish schools, but that number has reached more than 18,000 in years past. Birdsong said the organization spends about $10,000 a month in groceries.
But that’s not all Mighty Moms has cooking.
This year, the organization joined forces with the school system and the Livingston Parish Library to expand its Feeding Young Minds (FYM) project into all five libraries. FYM is an after-school program where students can receive a free snack and drink, get some homework done or partake in the many educational programs the library system offers.
Another project currently in the works is the conversion of an old school bus into a new mobile food pantry.
Birdsong said Jay Labarre, owner of Labarre Architects in Denham Springs, is donating his services to designing the vehicle, which would be Mighty Moms’ first mobile food pantry. Right now, it’s an old, gutted-out bus covered in rust, “but it runs,” Clark and Birdsong said.
“We believe Jay’s architectural firm is going to do a good job of drawing up our vision,” Clark said. “It’s gonna be pretty awesome, and we can’t wait to be able to unleash that vision.”
