LANSING - Kelli Wilson pulled her car up alongside a line of cheering volunteers just outside Everett High School on Sunday, unlatched her trunk and waited while they loaded food and other items in.
The voucher she had was for a 25-pound box of food; a 10-pound box of items such as shampoo, conditioner, lotion and personal care items; and a box of Avon products.
It's important, Wilson said, especially this time of year. She and her husband have seven children. He works two jobs, and she just started one herself.
"We have a lot of mouths to feed," she said. "I'm just very, very thankful. I wish I could have brought all the kids, but we had to have room for the boxes."
Her story, and others like it, resonate with Earvin "Magic"Johnson.
"Families are struggling," he said. "They need help and we understand that. We know that the economy has affected people here in Lansing."
That's one of the reasons he brought the Magic Johnson Foundation Holiday Hopeprogram home to Lansing.
The effort, a partnership with Feed the Children and other sponsors, is now in its second year. It was hosted in Detroit last year. This year it started there on Saturday, where several thousand families received food bundles, and ended at Everett on Sunday.
By the end of the weekend, the Magic Foundation donated nearly $1 million in food and other items to needy families.
Bringing Holiday Hope home
From inside Everett High School's gymnasium, where he once played, Johnson met with more than 200 children from Boys and Girls Club of Lansing, before making his way outside to help distribute donations to about 1,000 area families.
"This is where I'm from," said Johnson. "I wanted to bless some families here, and not just families, but the kids as well. I wanted to come home and do something positive, something good."
He brought his own family members with him, along with Michigan State University's Men's Basketball Coach Tom Izzo and the entire basketball team, who handed out toys and coats to children inside the school before helping with the food distribution.
Standing off to the side, Izzo watched a steady stream of children move through a line to meet his team and receive new coats and toys.
"It's been so uplifting," he said. "It's worth it just to see these kids with a smile on their face. It's a chance to go back to reality for the players. Some of them grew up needing things, and then they go to college and it's like Disney Land. This helps them recall what it's like. I just think this is one of the cooler things I get to do."
Lansing Public Schools Superintendent Yvonne Caamal Canul said Johnson's organization contacted her over the summer, and they began identifying families who would benefit from the outreach, looking at household incomes and relying on staff input as well.
"This is a hard time of year," she said. "I hope the message is, you can be a student in the Lansing School District, you can grow up, you can become very successful, but you don't leave Lansing. You come back to Lansing and give back to the community that gave you so much. I think the message is, this is the community who made us who we are and we went out and did good. It's time for us to come back and give back to the community."
A help 'in every way'
Outside in the distribution line, Lansing resident Monique Smith waited while volunteers loaded bags of food into her car and wished them a happy holiday with a smile. She said the items will help her family of four get through the end of the year.
"It's a help in every way," she said. "They're giving out coats and turkeys. It's definitely going to get us through the winter."
Johnson said he's hopeful the Holiday Hope effort will grow in years to come.
"There are families that may not have a good Thanksgiving and Christmas," he said. "How can we make it better for them? That's what this is about."
