By Kayla Evans
For the Opelika Observer
A nine-year-old boy from Opelika did something special to help the local community. Easton Wood, along with the Tiger Town Chick-fil-A, raised money to give food to Opelika’s E.L. Spencer Cancer Center and EAMC ICU patients.
Wood’s idea for giving back originated from a discussion he had at school. One day, Wood’s teacher asked her students what they would do if they were given $100. After some thought, Wood said that he would buy as much Chick-fil-A as he could and give meals to the cancer center.
After calling the Tiger Town Chick-fil-A, they were able to raise more than $100. Chick-fil-A originally got it to $300, then someone donated another $100, and by the end, they had raised enough for 110 boxes of food. Seventy-five went to the cancer center, and 35 went to the ICU.
On March 8, a group of volunteers delivered meals to the cancer center, and a different group delivered the boxed meals to the ICU.
“Because of COVID, the main thing that we did was individualize everything,” said Ozz Calton, caterer for Tiger Town Chick-fil-A.
“Everything is wrapped individually and placed in a box meal. There are different ones, but the normal box meal is a sandwich, chip and cookie.”
Calton, along with the Tiger Town Chick-fil-A, has been giving back to the community for about three years. Calton said he does not want food to go to waste. He said he would grab the food and go into their parking lot and look for police, firefighters and others who would like the food. He would look for anyone who was hungry or someone he could thank.
“Over the years, I just saw a waste,” he said. “We would have 20 biscuits and hash browns, and we would just throw them away. It would still be good under our qualified timeline for another 30 minutes or 40 minutes … I’m not going to waste this. There’s people in the community that would eat this and be thankful.”
Overall, the Chick-fil-A team has done dozens of things to help the community over the past few years. Their main goal is to help people and show the community that they care about them.
“It’s a sharing thing,” Calton said. “It’s reaching out to your community, and just saying ‘you know, we’re not going to be wasteful; we’re going to be thankful’.”