Blue Ridge Cotton Company and Gather raised $5,005.44 for Snack in a Backpack during the the months of June, July and August thanks to their 1% charity program.
Owner Joshua Durst said, “I believe, and Gary (Steverson, owner) believes, and we believe collectively as a business that feeding people is an act of mercy, it’s an act of grace, and most of all, it’s an act of love. What you do with Snack in a Backpack for the most vulnerable in our community is vital, it’s generous, but what I would call it is sacred. So, thank you for what you do.”
The program, which usually goes to one designated charity a month, stretched for three months instead.
“We have a 1% charity program, and in this time of chaos of 2020 we went from doing a designee each month, we thought we’d change things up a little bit, and we wanted to do a summer long designee,” Durst said. “There was one at the top of the list of who was going to be that summer long charity. We love Snack in a Backpack.”
The charity was created to honor their late son, Michael, who passed away in January of 2016 at the age of 18.
“This 1% for charity program came out of losing our son Michael,” Durst said. “Michael was a light in this world. He was good, and he was generous. But there was also a time in his life, before adoption brought him to our family, that he was also vulnerable and hungry. That’s something that I have a hard time with, to this day, knowing that that was a part in his life. It’s a part of a lot of our kids’ lives here in this community. That’s why what you do is so, so important.”
Snack in a Backpack board member Jeff O’Neill thanked the company for raising the funds for the organization.
“We’re just so grateful for their generous contribution,” he said. “We pledge to them that we will do our absolute dead level best to feed all the kids that we can in Fannin County.”
Durst explained that it means “everything” to him and Steverson to donate the funds to Snack in a Backpack as part of Michael’s legacy.
“I hope it just feeds, and feeds, and feeds and feeds,” he said. “He (Michael) was just a light, but his legacy is this. His legacy is getting to continue his light in this way.”