Food Bank Challenge Update

Well, the month of September is over and the friendly competition between ourselves and the LCC church around the corner is finished. The grand totals for the entire month came to 972 lbs of food donations collected by them and 909 lbs of food donations collected by us. All totalled we're just 119 lbs short of a ton, 1881 lbs from our two little churches.

That final week brought in amazing results. By the third Sunday of the month we were leading 467 to 369 so we added 442 lbs and they added an incredible 603 lbs.

What's important is that we did so much, together, to fill the shelves at the food bank. The need never goes away. Thankfully on a Saturday in November the Lions Club does a city wide blitz going door to collect donations. That big push manages to last almost a year but by the summer time and into the fall there starts to be a shortage. That's why we decided on September for our competition.

What needs to be done is to put food banks out of business by giving social assistance recipients enough to live on and helping them get good paying jobs so that the phrase "working poor" doesn't have to exist anymore. The director of the food bank reminded me that Jesus said, "you will always have the poor with you" but I've heard Christians use that as an excuse not to try to do anything to help the poor get out of their situation, as if that's their lot in life and Jesus even said so. That's not what the director meant. She agreed that welfare cheques don't go far enough. Often they barely cover the rent. That's why our little city of 18 500 or so needs a food bank and a number of soup kitchens around town. We'll always have the poor but we ought to advocate for them so that there don't have to be so many of them.

Shalom