10-Year-Old North Carolina Girl Feeding Elderly With ‘Lunchboxes of Love’

When 10-year-old Kalona Fewell heard that her community had high rates of food insecurity, she wanted to do something to help. Now the Greensboro, North Carolina girl is helping to fight that insecurity with "Lunchboxes of Love," and she chose to concentrate her efforts on the elderly.

According to WGHP-TV, each one of Kalona's “Lunchboxes of Love” contains healthy food and hygiene products. Last week, Kalona and a team of 20 friends and family handed out packages containing chicken salad sandwiches, water bottles, and toiletries to over 100 residents of a nearby elderly community.

“I saw all these other people giving back to their communities and I was like, ‘Well I want to give back to my community,’” says Kalona. “Not a lot of people think about them, other people might feed the homeless and that’s great, but we don’t really pay attention to our elderly.”

The "Lunchboxes of Love" have been met with gratitude, smiles, and hugs from the recipients.  “They gave me little presents, little cards and they were just saying, 'Thank you, thank you. I love what you’re doing,'” Kalona recalls. The 10-year-old is also encouraging anyone else who wants to help their community to get out there and do it. “If you don’t have the money for it, get donations,” she says. “Just reach out to people, even if you don’t know them.”

What's next for Kalona Fewell? Another project! She is already planning to distribute school supplies to children in need this fall. If you'd like to help, you can call Kalona's family at (336) 907-6945 for details.

A new study by SmartAsset ranked the most generous counties in North Carolina. And Mecklenburg County ranked near the top of the list. To create this list researchers measured how much money people donate as a percentage of their net income and the proportion of people in each county who donate to charitable causes.

View the most generous counties in North Carolina below:

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  1.43%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 9.77%

Charitable County Index: 31.39

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Iredell+County,+NC/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x88515a5200f53299:0xf4eb20ac5d2dd7e0

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  1.56%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 9.78%

Charitable County Index: 32.21

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Moore+County,+NC/@35.2595994,-79.5478465,10.75z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89ab5777cbccf3dd:0x9b655a0ffb000e60!8m2!3d35.3674493!4d-79.4703885

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  2.23%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 8.35%

Charitable County Index: 32.86

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Watauga+County,+NC/@36.2513113,-81.8297325,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8850d0d7e9925b87:0x32fc062a92d6a436!8m2!3d36.1941825!4d-81.734942

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  1.86%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 9.35%

Charitable County Index: 33.01

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Polk+County,+NC/@35.296061,-82.2311672,11.75z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x8859dfe02c8a8d85:0xaf614048eb2dc72!8m2!3d35.2686842!4d-82.1713632

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  1.87%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 10.88%

Charitable County Index: 36.60

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Durham+County,+NC/@36.051289,-78.9973976,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89ace93cc6aed62d:0x242454152e905754!8m2!3d36.0221805!4d-78.9031279

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  1.73%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 12.75%

Charitable County Index: 41.42

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wake+County,+NC/@35.7973409,-78.9051702,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89ac88ccfabb3d93:0xa41a40b5c635c72c!8m2!3d35.8031909!4d-78.5660852

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  2.18%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 12.13%

Charitable County Index: 41.42

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mecklenburg+County,+NC/@35.2579421,-81.0843444,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8856abc96599e1e5:0x19f6c12dbcdbcbed!8m2!3d35.2632655!4d-80.8543847

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  2.00%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 13.14%

Charitable County Index: 42.64

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Union+County,+NC/@35.011111,-80.6987602,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x8855cd4d43af5f23:0x9ba654f3f53bc105!8m2!3d34.9338651!4d-80.543845

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  2.15%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 13.14%

Charitable County Index: 43.54

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Orange+County,+NC/@36.0521855,-79.2477751,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89acdd65dbd3e811:0x49b749c57542ea3e!8m2!3d36.0263022!4d-79.1096901

Contributions as Percentage of Income:  1.79%

Percentage of Returns Itemizing Charitable Contributions: 14.67%

Charitable County Index: 45

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chatham+County,+NC/@35.6958569,-79.371034,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89acbc9393c41479:0xda597fa59834ed64!8m2!3d35.7211289!4d-79.17807

(From Smart Asset)

To find the most generous places, we compared two factors in each county: the amount of money people donate as a percentage of their net income, and the proportion of people who made charitable donations.

To determine the amount of money that people donate as a percentage of their income, we first calculated the net income for everyone in each county. To do this, we looked at tax return data and accounted for federal, state and local taxes paid. We also accounted for deductible entries, including mortgage interest, mortgage points and mortgage insurance payments. We then divided each county's total charitable donations by its total net income to see the amount of money residents in each county have donated relative to their income.

Next, we measured the total number of individual tax returns that show charitable contributions and divided that by the total number of individual tax returns in each county. This gave us the proportion of people in each county who make charitable donations.

We then indexed and equally weighted the two factors to yield our Most Charitable Places Index.