Buddy Pack program plays huge benefit for Wellsville family

By Theo Tate
Posted 11/27/21

Elizabeth Baig had a large crowd for Thanksgiving dinner at her Wellsville home last year.

She had her husband and six children, plus four foster children and a family of four at the house, making …

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Buddy Pack program plays huge benefit for Wellsville family

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Elizabeth Baig had a large crowd for Thanksgiving dinner at her Wellsville home last year.


She had her husband and six children, plus four foster children and a family of four at the house, making it a grand total of four adults and 12 children.


The Buddy Pack program in Wellsville came to the rescue by donating plenty of food.


“It’s a beneficial program for my family,” Baig said. “We find it highly beneficial to be able to have access to food that’s easily prepared. It’s great.”


The Buddy Pack program provides non-perishable food items for children in the Wellsville area. Every week, buddy packs are filled by local volunteers and placed in the child’s backpack on Friday.


“It certainly helps offset the cost,” Baig said. “The food they send is nutritional. It’s not junk food. So that’s nice.”


Four of the Baig’s children receive buddy packs. Baig said they have been receiving buddy packs for six years.


“My kids are definitely very blessed with it,” Baig said. “When we can, we’ll go and help pack the buddy packs on the monthly packings. We find it very beneficial for a community outreach program, but benefitting from that program  is kind of a double blessing.”


Baig found out about the Buddy Pack program from Clinetta Weinrich, a W-M School Board member who came up with the idea of having the Buddy Pack program while working as a kindergarten teacher at the W-M R-1 School District nine years ago.


“Clinetta saw me at some function,” Baig said. “She told me that Buddy Packs are optional. I said to her that we don’t go to public school. She said that didn’t matter. If we fill out the application for it, then the board would approve for them to get buddy packs through home school. So I filled out the application and I would go in whenever they did their packing.”


Baig later earned a spot on the Buddy Pack board.


“I was in a homeschool association that works with a bunch of families that homeschool around here,” Baig said. “So I got all of them signed up. I would get everybody’s food once a month and go and take everybody their buddy packs. That’s how I ended up on the board, because I was kind of that liaison to that homeschool association.”


The Buddy Pack program is for grades pre-kindergarten-3. It costs $5 per child to provide a buddy pack full of nutritious food each week.


Baig said the Buddy Pack program hands out Thanksgiving boxes that include bags of potatoes, Stove Top stuffing, cranberry sauces and canned vegetables.


“They provide a lot of assistance with that, too,” Baig said. “When you have six kids, it makes a difference to be able to have help like that.”


Baig has been living in Wellsville since 2012. Originally from California, Baig also lived in Branson for 10 years before moving to Montgomery County. She and her family live in a three-story brick house which used to be the old Wellsville school building.


“We lived down in the Branson area and we were looking for a house that was between Columbia and St. Louis because we have a special needs kid,” Baig said. “His main hospital at the time was Columbia and his backup was St. Louis. So we needed a house in this vicinity. In this house, we checked all of the boxes of the things we wanted and it had an indoor basketball court, so how can you say no to that?”


Baig said the Wellsville community has been supportive ever since she moved there nine years ago. Several years ago, the community held a fundraiser for one of her children who had to be rushed to the hospital. Also, a resident helped pay a water bill.


“Whenever they see there’s a need or there’s something going on, they do take action,” Baig said. “That’s kind of the benefit of the Buddy Pack program. Clinetta saw that there was a need for nutrition and she got everything put together and started that program knowing it's not a short-term thing. It’s a long-term thing. It was going to take a lot of work and a lot of people. She was willing to put that in to benefit the community.”

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