Hunger

Holy Discontent featured a chapter last week on a SAHM to five who packed up her suburban home and family, and hauled them to inner city Detroit to ignore race and class distinctions. As I read about the food pantry that is part of the ministry, I thought of how long it had been since I last dropped off a bag of groceries at Pleasant Suburb's version.

A call to the food pantry yielded a return call from Carol whose passion was obvious even over the phone as she talked about the needs of our community's hungry. She quickly offered a short list of items that were particularly needed right now: 2 pound bags of dried beans, 3 or 5 quart packages of powdered milk, and cans of spinach, carrots, pears, peaches, and fruit cocktail. She said she could give me the "full menu" later as we talked. It was a lengthy conversation, but it passed all-too-quickly. Carol is the sort of woman who is probably all sorts of in touch with what Bill Hybels calls our inner firestorm of frustration.
Getting off the phone, I was anxious to go to the grocery store. When the group of holy, discontent women met this week, a lady whose personal passion runs to feeding the hungry suggested we do something in a general way. I restrained myself from shrieking, "YES! Have I got a deal for you...", and used my inside voice to offer up the short list of needed items to the ladies. Those women were quick to express willingness to add to their regular grocery list in order to help combat hunger amongst our neighbors.
But that's not all. Yesterday, I met a friend for breakfast who plopped cash on the table and said I should add some items to the cart for her, too. Our youngest daughter sacrificed a week of her doggie poop scooping earnings to purchase spinach, carrots, and beans. A friend we met on our shopping trip let her small daughter select items to add to the growing donation after hearing about our quest to add to the food pantry's stock. Positively giddy over the donations that would surpass what our family would have given on our own, a challenge has been issued to the offspring to try to think of ways we can help or encourage others to give to the food pantry so that in this town no one need go to bed hungry.