COURTESY ZANIA STINSON

ZaNia Stinson is founder of the nonprofit Z Feeds, which provides Go-Go Bags for the homeless.

Mecklenburg County youth are providing essentials for neighbors in need.

Fourteen-year-old ZaNia Stinson’s nonprofit Z Feeds Go-Go Bags won Riley’s Way Foundation’s Call for Kindness competition. The annual competition, which also includes a $3,000 grant, recognizes teen-led projects inspiring kindness and fostering community strength.

Stinson was a 9-year-old when she founded Z Feeds Go-Go Bags to address food insecurity in the area. She has provided over 800 zip-top bags filled with nonperishable food, drinks, toiletries and reading materials to the homeless.

“I saw this lady and her children outside of Food Lion,” Stinson said. “They didn’t have enough food. I wanted to give them something, so I gave them $5. They were really happy.”

Stinson knows what these families are going through after living in a shelter with her grandmother. She transitioned out at age 5 when she moved in with foster parents.

There were 6,558 children and youth who were currently or formerly homeless and/or housing unstable in 2016-17, per the Child & Youth Homeless in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Integrated Data Report, which was released in June 2020.

“I just wanted to continue to give back to the community and give back to homeless people, because when I was little, I lived with my biological grandmother and we lived in a shelter,” Stinson said. “We didn’t have any food and we couldn’t just run out and get food, because we lived in a shelter. So I created my Go-Go Bags.”

The funding will allow Stinson to provide more Go-Go Bags to shelters throughout and around Charlotte.

“I also give them out to this hotel by my church, because they have brought in some homeless people, and they have needed some food,” Stinson said. “My family, my school, my church, my dance team and my community have all helped me pack my Go-Go Bags. It makes me really happy to see other people help me with my projects, and it makes me even more excited to see other children help me with my project help pack the bag to donate because my school and my dancing [team], they brought me a lot of items to put a lot of different items in the bag, and it just makes me really happy to see that I have all this support, and I can keep going.”

Comments