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Sibley says while the need has increased, so has the giving. “Every year
everybody comes together,” she said. “Sometimes we have to supplement it a
little, but most of the time it’s really good. People come through every
year.”
Some people have already come through.
Crossbridge
Community Church meets at Kingsway High School on Sundays and recently
held its Second Annual Night Out for Hunger on Nov. 12, with some of the
donations going to Kings Things as well as the South Jersey Food Bank. In
all, people responded by donating nearly 5,000 pounds of food.
The
evening featured family friendly events such as a bonfire with s’mores, a
trolley shuttle, moon bounces, kids crafts and free soup and hot cocoa.
“I am so inspired by the support of our community,” said Mark Barnish, the
lead pastor at Crossbridge. “We hope that this is the start of many years
to come where the community joins together in an ongoing effort to help
those in need.”
Part of Crossbridge’s plan was to get families and their children
involved, so that the idea of helping others can become a habit, rather
than a special event.
“It is never too early to begin teaching our children about helping
others,” Crossbridge Administrator Jaime Lloyd said. “We wanted Night Out
for Hunger to be something that parents would want to bring their children
to, to help them see the impact they are making by donating food to
families in their own community.”
Crossbridge started the event last year after finding out about the
growing number of families who were depending on Kings Things.
“We wanted to hold an event that would not only create awareness about
hunger in our community,” Lloyd said, “but would also engage families to
come out and work together to do something about it.”
The number of donations at Night Out for Hunger encouraged Dan Getman from
the Food Bank of South Jersey.
“We are already amazed,” he said early in the night. “This food is really
needed right now.”
The Food Bank of
South Jersey feeds about 12,000 individuals on any
given week, many of them children.
Bethesda United Methodist is also involved in other programs to help those
in need. They have mittens on a Christmas tree with a child’s gender and
age. Those who attend church then take the tags and buy the appropriate
gifts for that child. Bethesda also collects food for the
Neighborhood
Center in Camden and send children in Camden to camp each year. The church
does Samaritan’s Purse, an organization that collects shoe boxes filled
with necessities and small gifts that are sent around the world and Soles
for Souls which collects and distributes gently used shoes around the
world.
Another church that has been collecting and distributing food for years is
Evangelical United Methodist in Clarksboro. Its Blessing Store is open
year round and gives out a bag of groceries to those in need on the third
Saturday of every month and sometimes helps with emergency needs
throughout the month.
“We have been filling at least 70 bags of groceries each month and have
sometimes run out because more and more people are coming to us,” said
Evelyn Haney, who along with Janet Mossbrucker, organizes the store. “With
the price of groceries rising, we are in need of financial help, but we
have found that God provides.”
That occurred for Thanksgiving when an anonymous donor gave 80 turkeys for
families. The donation times at Evangelical are Tuesday through Friday
between 9 a.m. and
1 p.m. and Wednesday nights from
6
p.m. to
8 p.m.
The
church recently had a Harvest Sunday, where food was brought to stock the
Blessing Store. But Haney and Mossbrucker realize that everyone has needs.
“Donations are definitely down this year,” Haney said. “There are people
in our church who would normally donate who have lost their jobs and can’t
help, and others who can’t help as much because of rising prices.”
Evangelical also purchases gifts for children who attend Kids Alley in
Camden as well as Samaritan’s Purse. Evangelical also accepts donations
from twice yearly food drives at the local schools, township scouting
programs and other local churches and monetary donations from its church
congregation. They also shop at BJ’s Warehouse and Aldi’s to try and find
the best prices.
And
because of the efforts of those who donate, the volunteers who take the
food and the organizations who distribute it, some families will have a
priceless holiday.
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