A Good News Story
I thought I’d give you an update on how things are going with the lunch program we started when our Cold Weather Mat Program was put on hold in mid-March.
We started out making 30 lunches to hand out to the homeless in the park. In early April we upped it to 35. April 13 was the first day we gave them all out before I left the park. (One of the volunteers takes whatever we don’t hand out at the park and drives them over to where some of the homeless live so we always use all of them).
I have regulars who bring food to the church, drop food off at my home and bring food to the park. I have volunteers who bake cookies, muffins even paska. For the Saturday before Easter we put dyed hard-boiled eggs and chocolate eggs in the lunches.
When people ask, “How long will you be doing this?” I keep saying “As long as I have food or money to buy food we will probably keep doing this.”
I feel like this is so much bigger than me because God keeps providing food and money. Today one of the women that was making sandwiches with me gave me $30 to buy food for lunches. At the park this afternoon two men were sitting at one of the picnic tables watching while we handed out lunches. They called me over and asked where we were from and I told them ERBF and gave them my name. They said they wanted to help and then one of them handed me $50 to buy food for the bags.
I am overwhelmed by the generosity of people. One of my regulars brought down a slew of hot crossed buns and cookies to the park today so we handed those out as well. I have had so many people tell us how thankful they are to get a bagged lunch from us and that they wouldn’t know how to get food otherwise.
Anyways, thank you for supporting this as a church, for allowing me to use the Cold Weather Mat money and the church kitchen to facilitate this. I am so appreciative to be able to do this and be a part of something that gets to make people happy. And I have met so many good, generous people along the way. It is a blessing!
Take care!
Debbie Fell