By Craig Murphy

Springfield Times Editor

The Children's Snack Pack Program in Springfield is continuing, despite last Sunday's passing of Trudi Devereaux.

Devereaux started the local program last year after seeing a story about a similar program on the coast. The store manager of the Umpqua Bank at 1377 Mohawk Blvd. pitched the idea to bank officials as well as Springfield Public School officials, and helped launch the program last fall at Maple Elementary School.

The program provides 50 students at Maple healthy food for each weekend, and is done as a joint effort between Umpqua Bank and Food For Lane County. Umpqua put in $5,000 to help get the program rolling, and recently 50 additional students at Moffitt Elementary started getting the packs with items like fruit and oatmeal.

Romaine Strub, Umpqua senior vice president and regional manager, confirmed Devereaux passed away at her home Sunday.

A service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday at Musgrove Family Mortuary in Eugene.

Strub worked with her friend of 25 years to launch the Snack Pack program.

"She's pretty special," Strub said of her longtime friend. "We will continue on with the program. There's a lot of support for the program."

Strub wasn't surprised Devereaux, 59, wanted to start a program helping local youth.

"She was wonderful," Strub said. "She was very kind. She had such a passion for those children. It was unbelievable. She was the kind of person no one ever had anything bad to say about. She was kind, caring and compassionate. She would do anything for anybody. She's made a big impact on this community."

Strub fondly recalls the phone call after Devereaux heard about a similar program being done elsewhere.

"She called me and said, ‘Romaine, I want to do this! There's such a big need in this community. We can make this happen,'" Strub said.

Devereaux, who joined Umpqua Bank in 1997 and became manager of the Mohawk location in 2007, talked to local businesses about supporting the program. That commitment resulted in Umpqua Bank committing $5,000.

Donations can be made to the Children's Snack Pack Program at any Umpqua Bank location or at the Food For Lane County building at 770 Bailey Hill Rd. in Eugene. Checks should be made out to Food For Lane County since that's the organization administering the program.

For more on this story and other news from around the Springfield area, be sure to pick up a copy of the Feb. 5 issue of Springfield Times, available at news racks and stores all around the area. Look under the 'Newspaper Locations' link on this site to find out where. To subscribe to the paper, call 741-7368 or stop by 741 Main St.