MBS donates supplies to front lines

Mountain Brook Schools has served the community throughout its 61-year history. That hasn’t changed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

MBS has leveraged its resources in recent weeks to meet the needs of others around the area, particularly in regard to food and medical supplies. 

Spearheaded by Tricia Neura, director of child nutrition services, and Dr. Lisa Beckham, director of administrative services, MBS has donated countless food items and more than 200 boxes of disposable gloves to organizations combating COVID-19 on the front lines. 

“I really think it’s important that we help our community, whether it’s our immediate community or our surrounding,” Neura said. “We’re all in this together, and I just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing.” 

With school buildings closed for the remainder of the 2019-20 academic year, Neura personally gathered food from all six MBS campuses and delivered it to organizations feeding those in need. MBS donated yogurt, milk, chicken salad, hummus, produce, cereal, granola bars, chips, and crackers, among other items. Recipients include Homewood Middle School, the Levite Jewish Community Center, Magic City Harvest, and the Junior League of Birmingham.

Neura also plans to donate flavored waters to FIVE restaurant, which is giving away free meals to the homeless and first responders.

“I didn’t second-guess it,” Neura said. “It was just one of those, ‘Oh my goodness, how can we help others? If we’re not in the capacity to provide meals with our infrastructure, how can we help others that are?’”

Beckham answered the call to service with similar enthusiasm. After speaking with school board member Tommy Luckie, who inquired about the availability of personal protective equipment within MBS, Beckham reached out to the principal at every school to see what they had on hand. 

It didn’t take long for her to hear back from several principals and map out a plan to collect the materials. 

“Everybody was so willing to just give whatever they had,” Beckham said. “We knew we weren’t going to use the items for the rest of the year, and the need was great, so we just went ahead and collected. Everybody was happy to do that.”

Beckham piled more than 200 boxes of disposable gloves into the back of her car and then rendezvoused with Perryn Carroll, a fellow member of Luckie’s at Canterbury United Methodist Church. 

Carroll took the supplies to UAB Hospital. 

“When somebody reaches out and has a need, if we’re able to meet that need, then we want to do that,” Beckham said. “We have a lot of our community members who work at various hospitals, and a good number at UAB, and we just felt like we needed to support the parents and family members that had been so supportive of us in our schools.”

​This story is an installment in the Mountain Brook Schools "Good News" series. If you know about good news from the school or Mountain Brook community, please consider emailing your story idea to mbgoodnews@mtnbrook.k12.al.us.