AUBURN, Ala. – Seeing the nutritional need created by the combination of temporary school closures and job losses, Auburn coaches and former professional athletes are teaming up to help.
"Children are the focus of our foundation and realizing that we really need to stand in the gap between what the kids were getting at home and what they're missing when they're not at school," said Kim Hudson, who runs the Hudson Family Foundation with her husband, Auburn baseball legend and pitching coach Tim Hudson.
Thanks to the philanthropic equivalent of an assist from Bruce and Brandy Pearl, a touchdown from Gus and Kristi Malzahn, a home run from Butch and Robin Thompson and a hole-in-one from Jason Dufner and the Hudsons, the Auburn Dream Center is donating thousands of pounds of food to families in Lee County.
"When all of this started and we were trying to figure out where to plug in first to be most effective and efficient, I started getting phone calls from the Malzahns, the Pearls and the Thompsons, and Jason Dufner and his foundation were in it from the beginning, because they have the ability to order food for their snack bag program," Kim Hudson said.
"This was not about us. We're used to doing leg work and we enjoy it, but there are some big players who have donated significant financial resources to order food and to make it all happen."
The Hudson Family Foundation is also collecting donations for soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, feminine hygiene items and toilet paper at the Dream Center Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In addition to the food and personal hygiene donations, the foundation also sponsors a "Buy a Meal, Give a Meal" program, in which it partners with local restaurants to donate gift cards to furloughed service industry workers.
"Trying to be creative," Kim Hudson said. "Hopefully this doesn't last a whole lot longer but we need to be able to create things that will sustain these initiatives until we get over this."
With a 10-year foundation, partnerships with local school systems, and no salaries or overhead, the Hudsons believe they're well-positioned to help serve neighbors in need.
"None of this could be done unilaterally, just through our foundation," Kim Hudson said. "It's been neat to sit back and see the relationships we've been able to form with people and organizations in the community to make this work. That's the only way it's going to work."
"Things have pretty much been put on a screeching halt," Tim Hudson said. "A lot of people are out of work. It is unprecedented times for sure. We hope that things can get back to normal and when they do get back to normal, everyone who has been furloughed, they'll have a job to go back to.
"For us, fortunately we've been able to have a platform and have a lot of people who have supported our foundation who are very generous to be able to hopefully bridge the gap with some things that people are in need of. We're happy to be able to do it, we're very blessed. We just hope that the ship can get righted pretty soon and get back to normal."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer