{"id":241,"date":"2017-02-11T22:51:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T22:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.attemptgreatthings.com\/?p=241"},"modified":"2017-05-07T21:35:17","modified_gmt":"2017-05-07T21:35:17","slug":"learning-to-do-a-better-job-of-alleviating-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.attemptgreatthings.com\/?p=241","title":{"rendered":"Learning to do a better job of alleviating poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"
As I arrived this <\/a>morning, one of our volunteers told me we had five new families today for our food pantry at the church. A trip downstairs revealed that chairs lining the hallway were full and children were quietly playing on the floor as their families waited their turn for food. We\u2019ve been getting busier lately. From July of 2016 to December, we distributed over 6,000 pounds of food\u2014that\u2019s three tons in six months! In an average month, we are helping to feed about 100 people out of this little church. How happy we are to be able to provide this service. How sad that the service is needed.<\/p>\n A volunteer observed that our regular clientele list is growing every month. Sure, we get the emergency situations, like the family who came today because their home burned down in a fire this past weekend, but a growing group of people need food to supplement the groceries they can afford on a regular basis. Most seem to be working very hard just to get by. Some carry multiple jobs to make it work.<\/p>\n At a l<\/a>eadership level, our church is beginning to plan a shift to more needs-based outreach. I call it \u2018boots-on-the-ground\u2019 ministry because it comes alongside of those who need it at their point of need. It\u2019s very practical. Churches do a lot of ministry that is self-perpetuating and there\u2019s nothing wrong with programs that build up your people, however, we need to do more than simply meet the needs of those we already care for. That there are more and more needs to meet around us is apparent. We have no lack of people to serve.<\/p>\n When I arrived here a little more than four years ago, through our deacons\u2019 ministry, we used gas and grocery gift cards to provide for people who asked for help. We discovered that we were going through our entire benevolence budget in the first three months of the year and, therefore, were unable to help others very much as the year progressed. We struggled to find a better way to really help. As it turned out, in some cases we weren\u2019t helping at all. Through some addiction counseling, I discovered that several people who received our cards were selling them to pay for drugs here in the community. We definitely didn\u2019t want to contribute to the epidemic heroin problem that we, like many towns in Pennsylvania, have been experiencing. We needed a better way.<\/p>\n Our food pantry, officially named \u201cThe Deacon\u2019s Cupboard\u201d, was born of one woman\u2019s interest in caring for the poor. From that idea, a group of interested people came together and we started to discuss how we could meet the need for food without enabling dependence or poor behavior. Because of my previous experience with the Pennsylvania Food Bank, I knew that food was available in large quantities for pennies on the pound. When I introduced the idea, our kitchen leaders seized on the opportunity to use food in their ministry as an outreach.<\/p>\n Our Kitchen Team held several breakfasts and dinners that were promoted in the community, hoping to attract some who really needed a free meal. At breakfasts, food was offered on a suggested donation basis but many tickets were given away. The most effective idea to emerge that year was serving a meal prior to our summer kids program on Wednesday evenings. We had recently found out that many of the children in our community were going hungry in the summer when the school meals program was not in play. So, we offered a meal to parents and families who brought their kids in to the club meetings. They could come and eat with their children, leave them with us at the church for 90 minutes while they ran errands or did shopping, and then come back to pick them up afterwards. It was a church community\u00a0 effort and many pitched in. That summer, we averaged about 77 at meals. We ran that program for two summers. Currently, the local school district, realizing the same need, started offering the same meals in the summer break as they did during the school year.<\/p>\n