Jacksonville Reflections - grammar school (#0309)

“Blessings in a Backpack” poster at Hendricks Elementary. Knowing the dominance of religion in Southern culture I was afraid this was going to turn out to be some Christian effort, but wondered how that could be given the legal need to separate church and school. Thankfully (mostly), it turned out those fears were misplaced. “Blessings in a Backpack” (link below) turned out to be a non-profit that supplies food on the weekend to elementary school kids who would be underfed on the weekends. Despite its name, it doesn’t appear to have any linkage to religious organizations.

From what I could see of what might be the likely catchment area of the school now, its demographics are likely to be just a more extreme variation of what they were 60 years ago. The wealthier neighborhoods west of Hendricks and along the river seem to remain wealthy, but looking at the housing in the formerly middle and working class areas east of Hendricks, there seems to be an increase in the proportion poor and proportion minority.

www.blessingsinabackpack.org

(One of a series of photo-essay postings on personal history and race with keyword FlaAla0518)