Community Meal

Penny was once told she’d never be able to have kids. Now, she sits at a table each week in Lubbock Impact’s dining hall, surrounded by her family.

Despite struggles having a family for many years, Penny and her husband adopted one son and went on to have three additional biological children together.

After her daughters’ tragic passing over 7 years ago, Penny and her husband took on raising their two grandsons, one with an intellectual disability and one with effects from fetal alcohol syndrome. Two years later, Penny’s husband passed unexpectedly. Amidst the grief of her loss, she continued raising her grandsons, now on only one income. Feeding two growing boys became increasingly more expensive as the years went on.

Because of their struggle to make ends meet, one of Penny’s daughters told her about Lubbock Impact and the weekly Community Meal. They all came together, thankful for an opportunity to have a hot meal with each other, free from the financial burden.

Over the last two years, their table has grown, bringing in Penny’s brother, his daughter and her four children, Penny’s niece and now her niece’s brand-new baby girl. In the busyness of life, Penny said that Community Meal nights are the only time each week that she gets to spend time with her brother. Even their next-door neighbor, Billy, has joined their table saying, “at this point, I’m basically family too!”

Through coming to the Community Meal and learning about other resources at Lubbock Impact, Penny’s extended family now attends Fun Friday, Bible Studies and participates in the Clothing Closet as well. Each opportunity Penny says, “lifts a bit of the burden.” Billy’s only family is the one he sits with on Community Meal nights and attends Fun Friday’s as well because he “really enjoys the community”.

As Penny talked about what the Community Meal means for her family she laughed as she said, “life has been anything but easy” but expressed how the Community Meal offers her family a chance each week to slow down and spend time together. Penny works two jobs, not just to support herself and the grandsons she is raising, but to help her extended family with their hardships as well. As she fiercely looks out for her family, Penny says she feels “so blessed” by Lubbock Impact as we work to fiercely look out for her family too.