Together We Can Feed Our Hungry Neighbors
By Mtr. Virginia Holleman
The Vestry of St. Thomas has approved our entering into a partnership with Crossroads Community Services to provide nutritious shelf-stable, refrigerated and fresh foods to our neighbors who are food-insecure. Food-insecure means these are families who do not have reliable access to enough affordable and nutritious food for the month. Generally speaking, these families have enough financial resources to make it through three weeks each month, but the last week finds them at the bottom of the basket so to speak, having to “make do” with cheap, filling though often marginally nutritious food.
St. Thomas will become a Community Distribution Partner with Crossroads. There are a lot of hungry people in our neighborhood but we’re going to start small. Fr. Ray Ball will meet with the counselor at K. B. Polk Elementary School to select five families. Once we have at least five names we will start the enrollment process.
We will need 2-4 volunteers to help in the interview process once we receive names – and we will need at least 1 or 2 who can speak Spanish. Crossroads will determine eligibility.
Once a month our team will pick up the food from Crossroads on Young Street and bring it back to St. Thomas. We will need 1 or 2 people with pick-up trucks (so that the driver doesn’t have to go down every month) and 2 or 3 able-bodied volunteers to load the food into the vehicle and then bring it into our Parish Hall.
We will need 5-10 volunteers to separate each family’s food for easy pick-up and to assist in grocery distribution. We will have a list of what each family will receive – canned & dry goods, fresh & frozen vegetables, milk, eggs, bread, fresh meats. Clients will bring their own boxes and/or bags to take their food home.
We will pick up and distribute food on the same day. After our first time, we will have a better idea of the time commitment but you can count on not being involved all day!
We are budgeting $87.50 a month for this ministry. If you cannot volunteer your time, please consider making a contribution to support this program with checks made out to St. Thomas and “Crossroads Food Ministry” in the memo line.
If you would like to be a part of this new and vital ministry, please email Mtr. Virginia at food@thedoubter.org. We will have an information meeting on Saturday, September 26 at 10:00 am in the Parish Hall; we will share more about the program, the various volunteer needs, and have an opportunity for you sign-up to help.
