Helping hungry childen: how one town makes a difference

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Veronica Sturman - Children, who depend on public school meals to fill their stomachs, may feel some hunger pains on the weekends.   But there are groups that fill the gap and help those in need of help, and here's how one town makes a difference.

More than 47,214 children get free or reduced meals at schools throughout Central Louisiana. Now, more than 1,128 of these children also receive a backpack full of food to carry home over the weekend. BackPack Program has helped children for two years and is ran by the Food Bank of Central Louisiana.

The Cane River Green Market is hosting a food drive to support the BackPack Program. Two hundred students from L.P. Vaughn and Parks Elementary School receive backpacks of food to eat at home over the weekends and on school holidays. Donated food or backpacks can be dropped off at the Cane River Green Market on Saturday mornings. Food should be healthy and easy enough for a child to prepare. Please do not leave food that requires stove top cooking. Suggested food items include single serving portions of fruits and vegetables, cereal bars, peanut butter, and microwavable ramen noodles or canned ravioli.

Courtney Hornsby works for the City of Natchitoches and stated, “We are very excited to be participating in the BackPack Program for the second year in a row, and hope to only expand the number of Natchitoches Parish schools involved. Ensuring our children have access to nutritious food outside of the school setting is a priority for the City and ties in nicely with the Cane River Green Market’s mission of ensuring access to healthy, locally grown foods for all segments of our community.”

The Cane River Green Market is a fun place to hang around on Saturday mornings. So grab some nonperishable food and come on down to the riverfront. Listen to some live music, buy yourselves some fresh, farm grown tomatoes, and donate something nutritious to the BackPack program.

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Veronica Sturman is nine years old and a talented, prolific writer.  She already has several published books and has been a correspondent with this newspaper and others.  In Natchitoches Parish she is known as somewhat of a child prodigy.  Here again is one of her insightful articles about the local scene in her home town of Natchitoches.  This story shows how issues of hunger are dealt with in small town America and other places where people join to care for those in need of special help.

The joy of a child from the heart of Natchitoches for Christmas

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Veronica Sturman /Carol Forsloff - Our gift
today is the writing of a young child in Natchitoches, Louisiana who
represents in many ways the abiding love and great joy that comes from
the heart of children every day.



Veronica Sturman is that child,
that gift in Natchitoches, that gift from Natchitoches, whose talent is
here for all the world to see.  For that the editor of this newspaper is
grateful, for it sparkles like a jewel on any page.  For the rest of
people around the world who celebrate the birth of Jesus and the joy of
children, comes this story today:

There is nothing monotonous
about Natchitoches Christmas Festivities. French Creole Plantation tours
add to the diversity of Natchitoches Christmas events. The festival at
Oakland Plantation on Saturday, December 18th, was a blast.

There
was music, refreshments, book signings, crafts and plantation tours. My
favorite activities were dressing Ma-Man dolls and painting Christmas
ornaments.

The National Park Service hosted a Ma-Man doll booth
in memory of Mama Lair, Mrs. Lair LaCour. She is famous in the Cane
River community for her handmade dolls. Adults, teenagers and children
all enjoyed dressing these little stuffed poppets. I dressed one of my
dolls with a square piece of scrap cloth with a diamond cut from the
center. I slipped her head through the diamond hole and fastened a
rubber band around her waist. The dolls come in various shades of brown
and white and have poofy yarn hair. This year the dolls had no faces,
but last year they had facial features including rosy cheeks stitched
on. While making my doll, I enjoyed listening to the choir singing
“Frosty the Snow Man” and “Go Tell it on the Mountain.”

After
dressing a doll, I got to interview Deputy Nancy Drawhorn, Detention
Center Choir director, age 53. She has been working at the sheriff’s
department for four years. She said they have about two to three
performances each week. Deputy Drawhorn also practices with the choir
three times a week. According to Deputy Drawhorn there are 9 people in
the choir but only 6 singers. They also have one guitar player, one
keyboard player, and one drummer. The choir usually performs religious
music but will occasionally do something secular, like “Frosty the Snow
Man.”

The Oakland Plantation Festival was fun for all ages. It
is just one of the French Creole Plantation tours available during
Christmas time. Natchitoches and the Cane River area offer a large
variety of Christmas activities that last over a five or six week

period.

Veronica Sturman, Louisiana's multi-talented child sensation, rivalsJackie Evancho

NATCHITOCHES, LA - Carol Forsloff - Jackie Evancho, the young singing sensation from America's Got Talent, has nothing on Veronica Sturman, a child from Natchitoches, Louisiana who not only is a talented singer, but an author, journalist, illustrator, scholar and acrobat.

Veronica is one of those youngsters with a genuine interest in achievement but with the wide-eyed wonder for the world as a whole and the wholesome embrace of all things good.  She is raised in an atmosphere of family strength and affection, and her view of the world is forged by that embrace.

An eight-year-old with a keen mind, Veronica also has the heart as big as that mind that makes her even more special than a superficial view might give.

Young Sturman writes books.  She is the youngest author in Natchitoches, with a number of best sellers at the local bookstore on Front Street in the town.  Her favorite topic has to do with animals, but she writes on a variety of topics of broader interest as well.  She published her first book at the age of five.

Home schooling allows Veronica to reach beyond the usual to achieve.  At one time she was in school programs for achievers, but her work was so advanced the teachers had little time to provide her with the individual attention she needed to thrive at the level of her abilities.  Her science lab reports show a talent and concentration far beyond her

years.

Carol Brian, friend, Tanya Sturman, mother, and Addie Sturman, Veronica's sister

Journalism is one of those areas of study that requires most people have years of concentrated work to master the basics well.  Citizen journalists do this by writing numerous articles, while traditional journalists take University courses in order to master the trade.  For Veronica the dos and don'ts come easily for a girl that sees tasks as requiring the optimum effort, not the slap-dash approach that some writers use instead.

The most recent achievement for Veronica Sturman is her new assignment as a student journalist on Green Heritage News, where she posts a weekly column.

Undaunted by the disability of a shortened arm and fingers from a birth defect, Veronica is able to achieve far beyond those without her physical challenges.  Her happy smile and pretty countenance move eyes away from those challenges to the girl's great talents instead.

The launch of a career at the age of eight, from various directions, brings pride and joy to the Sturman family and to the City of Natchitoches where this young girl represents the best of achievement and values that are the model for children everywhere.

Portrait of President Barack Obama done by Veronica when she was just six years old.