Bag Brigade benefits from girl’s birthday gifts

By TAYLOR BROWN

tbrown@yourmvi.com

Every year since she turned 4, Kennedy Curcio has used her birthday as a way to give back to others.

At her birthday party last month, Kennedy, an incoming fourth-grade student at Marion Elementary School, asked her friends to bring snacks and other non-perishable food items instead of presents. The food was donated to the Bag Brigade program at her school. 

Started six years ago, the program gives students snacks and meals to take home over the weekend. It provides bags to about 200 students throughout the school district each week.

Kennedy, the daughter of Nick and Michele Curcio of Rostraver Township, learned about the program when her Girl Scout troop volunteered to help pack bags at Gospel Alliance Church. 

In past years, she has requested books from party goers. Kennedy’s mother helped her deliver them to the NICU at UPMC Magee-Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. Kennedy was born at the hospital seven weeks early on Jan. 12, 2012, weighing only 3 pounds, 4 ounces. 

“It was tough when she was born,” Michele said. “Especially having to leave her there while she grew. Thankfully, she didn’t have any health complications, she was just small. And the nurses were so incredible to her and us when she was born.”

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