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Several years ago, Debbie Sonenshine heard a story that broke her heart. A school employee spotted a child in the teachers’ lounge, looking for food. Apologizing, he explained that he was able to eat meals at school during the week, but his family lacked the money to feed both he and his brother on weekend days. That’s when Sonenshine made a solemn oath to herself.
“Not in Atlanta,” she declared. “Not in America.”
Since that promise, she has become an unstoppable force behind Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta. The nonprofit charity packs and distributes bags of non-perishable, easy-to-prepare proteins, vegetables, fruits, breakfasts and snacks and coordinates with schools to present the bags to students on Friday afternoons.
In four years, Backpack Buddies has grown from feeding 750 at its outset to more than 3,000 children weekly during the school year. The organization serves 50 schools and enlists about 35 community buddies as partners. They include churches, synagogues, civic organizations, a senior living facility and Coldwell Banker.
“I’m very proud and very excited about it,” says Sonenshine, an agent with Coldwell Banker Realty in Sandy Springs, Ga. With Backpack Buddies, she serves as board secretary and spearheads fundraising as a member of the organization’s development committee.
Sonenshine first got the program off the ground by coordinating with a loose-knit group of synagogues and churches that helped feed kids on weekends, and she talked the group’s founder into consolidating warehousing, food purchasing and volunteer management under an umbrella nonprofit. Today, this warehouse is where donated food items are stored for pickup by community buddies.
“We need money, and she, as one of the greatest fundraisers I’ve ever seen, gets it. We need volunteers, she finds them.”
—Terri Bagen
Drivers arrive at pre-scheduled times, load the food into vans, bring it to their churches or synagogues and turn it over to volunteers who fill bags for later delivery to schools with which they’ve partnered. The number of bags to be delivered has been determined in advance by the schools’ counselors, who know how many food-insecure children need weekend meals.
“I’m passionate about this,” Sonenshine says. “My dream would be for this to be taken national. There are so many groups doing this around the country and even in metro Atlanta. But I’d love to see this become centralized, so much more efficient and grow into a national organization that can be easily replicated in different counties.”
A Future-Focused Vision
According to Terri Bagen, Backpack Buddies’ immediate past board chair, Sonenshine’s greatest gift to the organization is chutzpah.
“We have a dream; she goes after it,” Bagen says. “We need money, and she, as one of the greatest fundraisers I’ve ever seen, gets it. We need volunteers, she finds them. And she’s also very bright, strategic and forward thinking.”
Future focus is key because the organization’s commitment to each child isn’t for just a few weeks, Bagen says. “You have to be well run. Your operations need to take into consideration not just the immediate future but the entire school year, every year, because that commitment on day one is to feed that child for the full year. You can’t just be thinking of today, you have to be thinking of the future. And Debbie has that ability.”
Among schools whose children benefit is Lockheed Elementary School in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Ga. Principal Tricia Patterson, a Backpack Buddies board member, has observed Sonenshine’s dedication to the organization’s mission.
“Her passion for wanting to not just feed the kids but take care of them drives her commitment to the organization,” Patterson says. “She’s driven by her recognition kids can’t learn if they don’t eat. I’ve seen her ask tough questions about how we can grow to reach as many kids as possible in Metro Atlanta.”The greatest tribute to the work of Sonenshine and other Backpack Buddies volunteers may have come in a note received from a mother. Translated from Spanish, it read, “I, Maria, am deeply grateful for the food. In the past there were many times we had no food at all. Now, when I come home from work, my daughter is already eating food.”
Repairing the World
Charitable instincts come naturally to Sonenshine, who was profoundly influenced in early childhood by her parents’ example of giving back, following the Jewish tradition of Tikkun Olam, a Hebrew phrase meaning “repairing the world.”
“My dad was involved in several civic organizations, and a lot of what they offered was food,” says the Pensacola, Fla. native. “They’d provide turkeys for families every year. After my mother retired, she loved to cook, and cook for others. My parents were always involved with Jewish charities and with Pensacola charities. One they retired, my mother became very involved with hospice, and she worked directly with hospice patients. One year, my parents were named National Hospice Volunteers of the Year.”
“She’s driven by her recognition kids can’t learn if they don’t eat.”
—Tricia Patterson
Sonenshine’s first career was as a pediatric social worker during an 8-1/2-year stint at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital, which she recalls as “an incredible experience.” In 1981, she followed her husband, a commercial real estate practitioner, into real estate work. Terming herself “basically a problem solver,” she finds her second career similar to social work. “You influence people’s lives by helping them find the place they are going to live.”
True to her forward-thinking nature, Sonenshine is focused on helping the organization make an even bigger difference in the not-too-distant future. “Our goal is to feed 10,000 children a year in the next few years,” she says.
Debbie Sonenshine of Coldwell Banker Realty in Sandy Springs, Ga., helps lead a program to deliver bags of non-perishable, easy-to-prepare proteins, vegetables, fruits, breakfasts and snacks to thousands of food-insecure children.
