"Hunger Fighter of the Year"-Rowan Windham

Tonight I had the distinct honor of accepting a very special award on Rowan's behalf.  Rowan was named the "Hunger Fighter of the Year-Food" by the New Braunfels Food Bank. He was honored for the amazing success of the Rowan Windham Memorial Cereal Drive, at Methodist Hospital, which brought in over 120,000 servings of cereal this past June.  As you may remember, Rowan personally collected nearly 4000 servings of cereal for the food bank from his hospital bed over 3 years ago, and then continued to collect more and more the following two summers.  This past summer, they renamed the drive after him and far exceeded our wildest dreams of how much good could be made through one cereal drive.  I am so proud of his giving spirit, his impact on the community, and his amazing legacy. 

Tonight's event was wonderful. Thank you to Michael Guerra, Eric Cooper, Monica Borrego, and everyone else at the SA Food and New Braunfels Food Banks, for honoring Rowan in this way.  I was so deeply touched, and I know Rowan was smiling down on us all tonight.  We look forward to continuing to help you feed thousands of children and their families for many years to come.  Thank you to Methodist Children's Hospital for giving Rowan (and the community) the avenue to help the food bank this way over the past four years.  

Rowan's home nurse of nearly 8 years (and his best friend), Cindy, attended the dinner tonight with me, at the McKenna Event Center in New Braunfels.  Thank you for being by my side Cindy.

I was so happy to see Michael Guerra, the SA Food Bank's Chief Development Officer, again and even more excited to see that he was still wearing Rowan's orange "Love your life!" wristband.  He said he wears it every day, and shares Rowan's story all the time.

They ran a short video of me sharing Rowan's story and explaining how he came to be involved in the cereal drive, along with photos of Rowan, and then I was presented with a beautiful plaque in the shape of a plate, naming Rowan "Hunger Fighter of the Year-Food".  I'm not going to lie, I cried, but they were happy tears.  Many others in the room cried as well, and quite a few came up to me afterwards to tell me how touched they were by Rowan's life and story.

(Eric Cooper, President and CEO, SA Food Bank)

 

If you are looking for a way to give back in your community, consider your local food bank.  Rowan never ate a bowl of cereal in his life, but he wanted to make sure that other kids had all the cereal they needed.  If he had the heart and the drive for serving the community this way, surely we can too.  Remember what he said, "If you can't see the good, make the good!"

There are a lot of people making the good at the SA and New Braunfels Food Banks.  Please help them by donating or volunteering, whenever you can.

Thanks again Michael, for all you do...to share and honor Rowan's life, to feed the hungry, and to serve our community. God bless you.