Aug. 25—Sometimes, a person just wants to do something unconditionally nice for her community, that's all.

That's why Stacey Elza kept staring at that cooler on her porch.

And that's why it kept staring back.

Well, OK: It wasn't actually "staring."

After all, it's an inanimate object, and inanimate objects don't do that.

The latter, she deals with every day, at WVU's Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center, where she works as a research writer.

She takes those aforementioned subjects and findings—with their labyrinths and tendrils of thesis statements, data and ramifications for society once they make it out of the lab—and hones and polishes the all of it, to a readable sheen.

Then, she hones and polishes again.

And again after that, if she has to.

By the time she's done, there's a press release or a magazine article that everyone can understand—not just the white coat, whitepaper set.

Still, on her porch, was the lyrical manifestation of that cooler.

The essence, you know, of what it implies.

Elza is familiar with those constructs, too.

She holds a master's of fine arts in creative writing and has crafted a novel in her time. She has another in the brewing stage that she keeps trying to sneak up on in her head.

All that, and the cooler, following her around with metaphorical eyes.

Sticker shock in Aisle 7 (while shopping for empathy)

What she literally knows is what it's like to stare a grocery receipt dead-on these days, swayed as those printouts are with inflation, supply chain issues and the like.

"My God, " she said. "I get sticker shock every time I go to the store. The prices."

So, in the meantime, said cooler was beckoning, along with the first day of school earlier this week in Monongalia County.

Elza gathered up her girls—daughters Jo, who is 12, and Alice, 9—and went grocery shopping.

It was the plan of the trio to make nutritious lunches for youngsters who may come from households not quite as lucky as theirs.

The daughters often accompany their mom on such altruistic missions.

Jo, in fact, snapped the photographs that accompany this article.

Everything is anchored to the fostering of empathy, Elza said: The knowing and realizing that while there are others out there less fortunate, one can still help, in ways big and small.

They came back with a nutritional take of juice, cheese sticks, crackers, apples, peppers and ranch dip—plus Oreos (because sometimes, you just have to).

One dozen brown-bag lunches, in that cooler on ice for the taking. Students off to school for that first day, or someone homeless, with a growling belly, every day.

Pass the Blessings With the help of other friends, meanwhile, said cooler was tethered to the Blessings Box at the corner of Dorsey and Southern avenues in their First Ward neighborhood.

Blessing Boxes are repositories of goodwill popping up more and more. Places where people leave cans of soup, warm coats and toys and books.

The First Ward edition, Elza said, is currently in need of easy-open canned goods, plus granola bars and other foods that don't require a lot of preparation.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are always welcome, along with toothpaste, toothbrushes and dental floss.

Deodorant and feminine hygiene products, too, she said.

"You'll really be helping out, " Elza said.

She was glad her girls got to see how much they helped out. Just two brown bags remained in that cooler at the end of that day Tuesday.

Which meant somebody got fed.

Even in relatively prosperous Mon County, food insecurity—the state of simply not taking in enough food to sustain one's self nutritionally—is a factor.

As many as 2, 000 children in Mon have come under that classification in recent years, according to Feeding America, the online nutrition watchdog group.

One-in-five children across the Mountain State also go to bed hungry, the group says.

Maybe it's her maternal instincts staring back at her, Elza said.

"Everybody is worthy of food. Everybody is worthy of care and love. Everybody."

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