(14 Sep 2020) "I woke up a lot of mornings crying," said Sharawn Vinson, a mother of six from New York.
Struggling to keep her kids fed through the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, she made a decision that brought tears to her eyes.
"It was hard feeding them three times a day. You never really realize how important school is until you don't have it. Like, it was hard." Vinson said.
"So I didn't have to worry about running out of food, I sent my kids to North Carolina to their dad's house," she said about her eleven-year-old twins, Mason and Maddison Washington.
Stress levels rose as pandemic fear, virtual learning and piling bills seemed endless.
"Knowing that their father was going to be able to provide for them for at least a couple months to where I can try to build up and try to last the next couple of months," she said. "I love them too much to ever let them feel the weight of us adults."
When her twins returned from North Carolina, they began volunteering at a restaurant food pantry.
"So a friend of mine put a post on Facebook and he said, 'does anybody want to help pack food to give out to people that needed food'. So I said 'you know what, that's something that's up my alley'," explained Vinson.
The family used the pantry food to aid their own hunger while also helping their neighbors overcome food insecurity as well.
"Watching my daughter give food to people, risk her own health and do it with a smile, it made me know that what I was doing that day was the right thing," said Vinson as a tear fell from her cheek.
In recent weeks Vinson and her kids have continued to volunteer to pack and deliver outside of their housing development in Brooklyn.
"There's so many people that's hungry, that have nobody. Like, there's people dying alone. I got a half a couch, paint peeling off the wall. Two beds, three beds for all of us. But I got her, I got my grandson, I got my kids and I got my life. What I got to complain about?"
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