‘Health, healing and hope’

Nonprofit brings Thanksgiving feast to underserved kids

Shortly before workers started streaming out to the Cuney Homes courtyard with hot plates of turkey and stuffing, kids piled in and out of a bouncy house and played on swings.

Their parents and families sat at tables set up on the courtyard’s basketball court, with music blaring on speakers from a DJ.

Debra Johnson got up from her seat and proceeded to the middle of the court, where she started dancing. Others joined in.

“I like doing that,” Johnson said afterward, with a smile. It was her first time attending the Thanksgiving celebration of Kids Lives Matter, a local nonprofit group.

Every year, the group serves up an “exciting, scrumptious”

Thanksgiving feast, as founder Catherine Smith put it, and tries to connect people in Houston’s underserved communities with services — medical care, free beds and educational opportunities, among others.

“We really say that we provide health, healing and hope to the community,” said Smith, who leads the event with the nonprofit group’s co-director,

Madilyn Traylor.

The nonprofit was founded when the two former Houston Independent School District educators saw a need in their students, who would often show up to school hungry. Kids Lives Matter started by trying to give those students meals when school is out, along with other services and programming, but Smith and Traynor said they have tried to expand their reach to the whole family.

On Saturday, they estimated they would serve at least 500 meals.

For the complex’s residents, it was also simply a chance to get outside. That’s how Bracy McCoy found himself in the courtyard, with 17-month-old Bre’Asia on his shoulders and his other children out playing.

“They get the kids involved,” said McCoy, who also grabbed a turkey during a giveaway earlier in the morning.

The food is wonderful, said Careva Toliver, but it pales in comparison to the opportunities the group has opened for her granddaughters. Toliver has known Traynor and Smith since their HISD days, and she said they recently did a field trip with the kids to a hospital.

One of her granddaughters returned home with aspirations to work in the medical field. Toliver said it wasn’t something she previously considered.

“They open doors in the kids’ minds,” she said.

Photos by Marie D. De Jesús / Staff photographer Kemyrie Ramsey, 9, embraces Le’Nirah Jackson, 5, as they wait for the activities planned at the Kids Lives Matter annual Thanksgiving community outreach event Saturday at Cuney Homes in the Third Ward.

Volunteers serve food for the residents of Cuney Homes. In addition to the feast, Kids Lives Matter works to connect underserved communities with medical and other services.