Jennifer Hudson’s high notes
July 10, 2012 8:10PM
Article Extras
Updated: September 9, 2012 1:15AM
On August 14, my sister Julia and I will host our second annual Hatch Day at the new Kroc Center on the South Side. Along with about 50 members of our extended family and dozens more volunteers, we’ll be handing out school supplies ranging from calculators to crayons to USB drives — anything you might need for school — to 5,000 inner-city kids.
That date would have also been my nephew Julian’s 11th birthday, and giving school supplies to kids is the perfect way to honor his memory; he was all about education. He did his homework without being told, and he even changed his own bedtime from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m. because he didn’t want to be late for school. You couldn’t call him Julian King; he wanted to be called Dr. King, because he wanted to grow up to be a doctor. My son David, who turns three in August, is so much like his cousin, it’s amazing. He’s just as smart.
People always ask me about the name Hatch Day. Julian loved parties, and he used to make up Hatch Day invitations every day to send to his family and friends. To this day we don’t know how he came up with the name, but now it does have a meaning: It’s a day spent in his honor doing something he would have loved.
Hatch Day also honors my brother and mother because it’s a reflection of the kind of people they were. When we’re passing out cupcakes and goody bags, we think of my brother, who used to barbecue for the whole neighborhood and feed everybody. And my mother used to always tell us that without family you have nothing, so we’re honoring her by looking out for mothers and fathers and children who can’t afford what they need.
Birthdays and holidays will forever be challenging for us, but now we look forward to the joy they can bring us. They are an opportunity to bless a lot of people and see a lot of smiling faces through his memory. Julian also loved Christmas, and I remember my sister going shopping to pick out his special toys. This December we’ll do our fourth annual toy drive in his honor, too. Julia literally handpicks every toy so it’s healing for her, and for me, and then we get to look forward to the holidays and his birthday and seeing so many happy children.
Eventually we hope to be able help the whole city of Chicago, and next other cities and states. We’re giving Julian his Hatch Day, and we want it to grow and grow.
Hatch Day will be held on Aug. 14 at the Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, 1250 W. 119th Street. For more information, please contact, juliandkinggiftfoundation@yahoo.com or follow @HatchDay. Donations of school supplies can be made at Chicago area Weight Watchers centers.
Jennifer Hudson donated her fee for writing this column to the Julian D. King Gift Foundation.
