Students get free food, shoes

As many as 300 parents and children came to Stevens Elementary School on Tuesday night to receive free food and perhaps a small pair of shoes.

Earlier in the afternoon, teachers stayed after school waiting for the big event: the arrival of a panel truck loaded with fresh produce.

When the truck came, courtesy of the Washington State University Extension office for Spokane County and the Second Harvest Food Bank, the teachers rushed to carry the boxes into the school’s multipurpose room, where the food would soon be distributed.

“They know the need is great in this area,” Stevens principal Mike Crabtree said. “They do so much more than teach kids.”

Soon kids and parents came pouring in, laughter and conversation drowning out the Christmas carols on the public address system. School boys stood around eating oranges over a trash can. Smaller kids lined up to visit with Santa.

Their parents were collecting sacks of potatoes, pears, broccoli, bread and coleslaw.

“I’m so happy,” said one middle-age man, his arms loaded with goods for the holidays.

It was the social event of the season in one of the poorest school service areas in the state.

Stevens Elementary, at 1717 E. Sinto, is a Title 1 school, meaning it qualifies for federal funding because more than 40 percent of its students come from working families recognized as low-income. About 92 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

As many as 52 of Stevens’ 505 students are homeless. Still others are able to stay in the school only part of the year, until their families’ first and last months’ rent runs out.

But Tuesday night the atmosphere in the school was anything but glum.

It was a night to celebrate community, a chance for teachers and parents to get reacquainted and chat about something besides that troublesome C- in math.

“It’s just a great time to interact with ‘our’ parents in a different way,” said Julie Stannard, a first-grade teacher who grew up in the northeast Spokane neighborhood.

Next to her stood one of those parents, Crystal Duran, who lives two blocks from Stevens. Duran, a home caregiver for developmentally disabled adults, hasn’t been able to work since June because of back surgery to repair three compacted vertebrae.

“I was in the hospital for my daughter’s birthday and Thanksgiving,” said Duran.

As she spoke, a little girl with a Christmas-morning smile ran up to her with a new pair of snow-white sneakers.

“Look mommy,” the second-grader said.

Duran hadn’t realized that upstairs, her daughter and husband had waited in another line to receive one of more than 150 pairs of children’s shoes donated by the Spokane Scottish Rite.

“Everyone’s great around here,” Duran said.

With her husband studying at Spokane Community College to become an auto mechanic, Duran said she didn’t know how her family would have made it through the year without family and friends.

“I can’t wait for 2008,” the mother said. “Life is going to be so much better. I know it.”