The first question was whispered when the stacks of hamburger patties, fixings, baked beans and potato chips dwindled, and Mandy Armstrong was completing another Thursday night pre-game meal for the middle school football team.
Nine years ago Armstrong was serving another year as a key athletic booster supporter at both Hernando middle and high school in DeSoto County, Mississippi, where her children played various sports, when an innocuous yet profound moment occurred.
Initially, it went unnoticed.
The polite request, she remembers, for a second burger from any one of her son’s teammates was not unusual. What was striking, however, was the same teenager’s follow-up appeals minutes later.
From the repetition of putting more food on a paper plate, the quieting school cafeteria became a conscientious loudspeaker pointed directly at Armstrong.
“This boy kept coming over, with his brother, and asking if he could have more,” she recalled. “And I did not think much about it, they were just eating seconds because they were growing kids.
“But yet another time he came by, he sat down beside me and said, ‘Miss Mandy, may I have whatever it was left to take home?’”
It was an innocent question taken straight out of the pages of “Oliver Twist” and an unforgettable exchange for Armstrong.
Two months later, while waiting with her family for their food to arrive dining at a steakhouse, Armstrong noticed a Salvation Army Angel Tree in the restaurant. The glance turned into a stare that rekindled the memory of interacting with the hungry student.
“Then I started thinking about how he even asked me for the remaining pickles—that always blew my mind that he asked me for the pickles,” she said. “And that was so heart-wrenching to me. He didn’t care; it was food.
“Remembering that moment and then looking at the tree, I just knew our family needed to give back, and to teach our children to give back.”
Backyard Focus
After learning more about the trees, the Armstrongs passionately became devoted Angel Tree sponsors—starting that night at the steakhouse. Meanwhile, Armstrong took a sharper note of the signs of hunger in her community and encouraged her children to be liaisons for securing leftover food at pre-game meals for peers in need.
“It became clear to me that these children would not be eating again through Sunday until school on Monday. And it absolutely broke my heart,” she said.
Initial sympathy about under-detected local food insecurity shifted to the holidays and a desire to prevent a child experiencing limited homelife provisions from missing out on holiday cheer.
Armstrong also became aware of inconspicuous homelessness and other poverty-related, contradictory challenges in DeSoto where new rooftops, a major hospital and shopping centers and domestic amenities flourish.
That same school booster club, sparked by Armstrong, soon became regular Angel Tree sponsors, starting with 10 families the first year, then many more thanks to a collaborating band booster club. The combined boosters eventually parted ways from Angel Tree sponsorship, a national charitable campaign, and later, another regional toy drive charity.
“My biggest mission was to help DeSoto County. I grew up in Southaven, so I wanted assistance to be on my territory,” and not across the state line into Memphis, Armstrong told the Mississippi Free Press.
“We really try to get aid to the people in our own backyards that need help. That’s why this started,” she said.
Tie a Ribbon on It
On Friday, Dec. 12, parents representing 310 children in Tate, Tunica, Panola, Marshall and DeSoto counties—which Mississippi’s 2023 statistics show have a combined poverty rate of 22.5%—visited The Awakening Church in Southaven to gratefully pick up wrapped presents their children had submitted via wish lists. The gifts were the result of a year-round operated charity called Halo of Hope, which Armstrong and her friend, Kim Derryberry, formed four years ago.
Five area businesses, including a coffee shop and nutrition stores, helped promote the need for sponsors. Recently, Halo launched its first website, enabling under-privileged families to apply for help and allowing residents to sponsor or donate financially, volunteer Nathan Stecchi said.
Santa Claus did not attend the distribution, but a group of nearly 60 volunteers ran an orderly operation of cookies and holiday spirit in the auditorium where bicycles and other large items tied with big ribbons sat lined up ready to roll out to vehicles. In an adjoining room, a group of teens and adults furiously wrapped smaller gifts like dolls and toy trucks.
Amber Smith and her father, Chris Smith, who live in Byhalia, Mississippi, watched high-school volunteers carry gifts down the church’s steps to their car where her daughters, ages 8 and 10, excitedly awaited.
The family first learned of Halo of Hope from friends about two years ago. Since then, the Smiths have received gifts from Halo of Hope like dollhouses, bicycles and shoes.
“This means a lot to us. It’s a lot of help, and there are some wonderful people helping to do this,” Amber said. “Before (becoming a Halo recipient), it was a struggle for us to get gifts for (our kids).”
Some of the regular donors include Diane Bearden, a longtime friend of Armstrong, from the days they both worked the school’s concessions stands at games. Bearden and coworkers at the Memphis engineering firm she works for donate to Halo.
Bearden’s response to help derives from seeing her own children “have plenty” at Christmas, she said. This year, she volunteered to help check that donated gifts delivered the day before distribution were in proper order and that lists had been fulfilled. That trip sent Bearden back to the stores. She returned later with gifts three separate times, she counted, to ensure that one family’s siblings were receiving about the same amount of presents as one another.
“There was a family that had six kids, and I adopted the two oldest. After I adopted my original two, I came back to check, but I wasn’t done,” she said. “So, I went shopping and came back and filled their bags so that all six were equitable,” she said.
Francine Wooten from Senatobia, Mississippi, recently learned about the charity, also from a friend, and was in line to receive gifts for her nieces: Jasaria, 7, and Jacaila, 4. Items included baby dolls and games.
Wooten gained custody of the two children last year, she said, and the gifts help to “fill in the gap for me,” she said. “It’s a big help. When I learned I was eligible, I became excited because the gifts will take a little bit of financial pressure off of me.”
Increased expenses caring for her nieces “has been rough,” she vented. “I had to change my entire routine, including spending. So every bit helps.”
Timely Help
Word-of-mouth advertising, stemming from Armstrong and Derryberry, built up the charity’s networking strength, particularly with about 30 local businesses. The organization has also made both an effective and serendipitous impression on recruiting volunteers, Stecchi said, who now amount to about 100.
Stecchi and his wife Rachel, who happens to be the principal at DeSoto Christian Academy where students have also become donors of Halo at Christmas, relocated to DeSoto from New England four years ago and discovered Halo while seeking a local charity to support. A week before this year’s distribution, the high-school student body of almost 150 filled stockings with stuffed animals and toiletry supplies for the families. The community service has become an annual, competitive donation drive that the pupils look forward to doing together to help others.
Corbett Wheeler, a senior, said that engaging each year in the charitable activity “opened his eyes to those who are less fortunate” in his immediate surroundings. Fellow senior Rylee Fuller said her family’s business in Memphis regularly encounters less-fortunate individuals and that she is happy she gets to do her part.
“There’s not always signs you can see that someone is struggling. And helping stuff essentials in stockings (serves as) a reminder that missionary work can be right near home,” Fuller said.
More schools have gotten involved with the nonprofit’s program including Northpoint Christian School and Olive Branch High School.
Ariele Owens brought her daughter Ava, a high-school senior, to the distribution because the latter needed to complete service hours for school. Both helped wrap gifts this year. “It’s great to volunteer along with her and this is the best experience to model and teach her how to be a giver in the community,” the mother said.
For the past few years, the spaces the charity has relied upon to collect and use as a pickup location for gifts have been unsteady, Stecchi said, after initially holding distribution in the emergency shelter building at a school campus.
Recently, a chance opportunity presented itself, he explained: As Halo was seeking out possibilities online to rent, volunteers identified The Awakening Church, which was renting out its building for other churches to worship. When its pastor, Logan Hill, learned why Halo organizers wanted the space, he quickly waived any rental fee and encouraged his congregation to embrace the charity’s mission with welcome arms.
About a dozen of the church’s members helped to volunteer with setup and distribution of the gifts, and some prayed with families in the parking lot, Hill said.
Hill didn’t expect to see as many gifts donated for children, he acknowledged. “It’s really awesome—just to be able to bless people and be a part of helping God’s love shine to other people,” the minister said, noting that the church plans to continue to host the holiday-assistance program in the future.
Shoring up Operations
Derryberry and the Stecchis worked next to one another at the check-in counter at The Awakening Church during the gift distribution, making sure all the paperwork was in the right order.
As a co-founder of Halo, Derryberry took time to reflect on how much the organization has worked and fine-tuned its mission while solidifying its operational structure through the new website, finding a stable location, and fostering a wide umbrella of support financially and in volunteer hours.
The moves have positioned Halo of Hope to grow and better serve. Earlier this year, Halo tested a similar program of offering Easter care baskets for area families in the spring. Thanks to its “great success,” as volunteer Nathan Stecchi described it, Halo will offer Easter baskets again in 2026, possibly beyond.
Derryberry said an important aspect of the charity—and one that makes the work for it more rewarding for the volunteers and organizers—is getting to personally know many of the families, as several of them return in the years that follow. “It makes you aware of your community. Every year, (Halo) does that,” she said.
To that end, Halo of Hope also brought supplies to the Sardis Community Nursing Home, to give the elderly residents who live there holiday presents such as blankets and other goods.
While Derryberry works on the business side of Halo, Armstrong is more the face of the organization, Derryberry said, adding that their team is a “growing army of helpers” who are essential to the mission’s success
“This is a mass production that we have going here,” she said. “And you touch so many different lives; there’s hundreds of families here. And it just brings your heart joy to make an impact for your neighbors.”
To learn more about Halo of Hope—both its programs and how to become involved or seek assistance in the future—visit haloofhopems.org.