11/22/23

At first glance, she didn’t look old enough to be a grandmother, but when you looked at her eyes and her hands, you could tell she had a hard life. As I put the grocery bags in her backseat, she apologized that her car was dirty. “Between the grandkids, the dogs and the chickens, it’s impossible to keep it clean.” I offered to show her mine. I don’t need  grandkids, dogs and chickens – I can keep it dirty on my own! 

She said that she and her husband had just taken in their 3 grandkids and had come to LCCI for food. She told me, “I was in tears on the way wondering about Thanksgiving – I didn't know you were giving away turkeys. I was just coming for regular food.” She wiped away tears again as she told me, “You gave my family Thanksgiving.” 

YOU gave Thanksgiving to a lot of families! All the food you donated for our food drive went out within the first hour on Monday. I’ve seen a lot of tear-filled eyes this week.

Dorene, Kim and I worked at LCCI Monday morning from 9:00 till 11:00. The time flew! My job was to take grocery carts of food out to the clients’ cars. Everyone who came received two grocery bags of staples (pancake mix, syrup, corn muffin mix, canned fruit, dried beans, canned beans and corn, etc.), a bag of Thanksgiving items (stovetop stuffing, either a cake or pie mix, and cranberry sauce), a couple of small bags of bread and desserts, and either a frozen turkey or a canned ham.  There were four of us who, for two hours, made a constant circle, loading up a grocery cart, taking it to a client’s vehicle, then repeating and repeating . . . we served 72 families on Monday and 84 on Tuesday! 

While I worked in the front, Dorene and Kim worked in the back. 
 

I can tell you, those two ladies lived out Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all our might!” They started the morning marking out barcodes (a lot of time is spent marking out barcodes).  A truckload of food came in shortly after we opened, and everything had to be marked, and stocked in the shelves.  They also sorted bread, pies and pastries donated from Publix (there was one birthday cake; we gave it to a man whose birthday was the next day), and did whatever else needed to be done. 

Dorene told me, “I spent most of my time supporting the support staff. Making it easier on the ones putting together the bags – bringing them pancake mix or whatever they needed when they ran out.” 

This was Kim’s second time volunteering at LCCI. “It's becoming something I want to do anytime I’m here now.”  I asked her how her experience Monday compared with the morning she served back in the summer. She said, “This experience was much different than before. It was much calmer in the summer. In the summer, there were only 2 people marking that day, so even though it was slower, I was busy the entire time.” Of course, the day she served in the summer there were only 11 or so clients compared to the 72 we had Monday!  

One of our volunteers that first day was an 11-year-old boy named Ben. He stayed out on the sidewalks and helped manage the crowds (he told his grandmother, who was serving in the back with Dorene and Kim, that he was “working the streets.” His grandmother suggested it might sound better if told his folks he was “managing the sidewalk.”). While he was outside, someone came up and handed out a $20 bill to everyone who was in line and offered Ben one. Ben demurred at first but the man insisted. He finally took one, thanked the man, and, without hesitation, walked inside and donated it to LCCI. 

Tuesday we had about a third of the volunteers we had on Monday, but things still went well. Two of our volunteers were a six and eight-year-old brother and sister. They kept themselves busy the first hour marking out barcodes, and then the second hour they did a little bit of everything else, including bagging up bread and pastries and helping take out food to the clients . . . in other words, they were being a blessing and making memories that will stay with them for years to come.

LCCI is always in need of help! And obviously, there’s something for anyone at any age to do. They’re open from 9:00 to 11:00 from Monday-Friday (I volunteer Friday). LCCI needs people for data entry, putting together food bags, and  marking out barcodes (there’s a lot of that – did I mention that there’s a lot of marking out barcodes?). There’s always a lot of laughter, and you know that in your two hours a week (that’s two hours out of 112 waking hours, which really isn’t much) you’re blessing families who are struggling. 

Besides blessing others, it will be a blessing to you. I promise you, it will change your perspective on life. Normally a family gets $95 worth of groceries, but with the thanksgiving items, the total was $135. That might sound like a lot, but in today’s economy it isn’t. Most of us spend that on groceries without giving it much thought. For our clients at LCCI, $135 in groceries is a big deal. 

If you’re interested in service, I’ll be glad to talk to you about it anytime.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving! This past Sunday was wonderful. Someone said our next church should be in a restaurant where we could have dinners like that all the time! Someone else suggested we do a church cookbook, and I’d support that because that was one of the best pot-lucks I’ve ever been to. 

I made a pig out of myself and I’m not ashamed of it. At all. Which is, of course, ironic in light of the scripture Ashlyn Krupp excellently read from I Corinthians (“you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of yourselves”) . . . but the difference between Sunday and I Corinthians is that in Corinth not everyone got to eat while at Christ Church there was more than enough for everyone! We were equal opportunity gluttons!

You are all a blessing, and I’m thankful for each and every one of you.