The Perfect Recipe

 

by Ben Simms

What happens when you mix hungry kids in need with churches hungry to serve? A perfect recipe for an incredible project. Dozens of churches across the United States have teamed with Lifeline Christian Mission”s Kids Helping Kids ministry in partnership with Kids Against Hunger, to bag tons of food for hungry kids in Haiti.

 While not as tasty as Grandma”s turkey dinner, the food packed at each bagging event is certainly more than rice and water. The Kids Against Hunger mix is a specially formulated, fast-cooking, rice-based combination of vitamins, soy, dehydrated vegetables, and other nutrients that provide in one serving about 75 percent of a child”s daily requirement for a healthy diet.

Those are the ingredients for what goes in the bags, but what about the recipe for packing them? A look at three churches that carried out food-packing projects demonstrates some of the key ingredients involved.

FIRST INGREDIENT: THE WHOLE CHURCH SERVING

One church hungry to serve with this project has been Park Chapel Christian Church in Greenfield, Indiana. At each event, volunteers gather to fill bags with this special recipe, enough for eight to 10 meals each. Park Chapel families worked together, measuring and pouring food into bags before sealing them.

Participants donated funds to help with the event. Some families stopped dining out to help raise money for their donation. All totaled, more than 900 people have participated, packaging enough food for about 300,000 meals and donating $33,000!

Park Chapel event organizer Pam Sever wrote, “This event has been so well received we are still getting requests to “˜do it again” . . . This is a great way to send a thousand people on a mission trip by bringing it right to our church!”

A great bonus with hands-on events is they get your entire church family serving together.

SECOND INGREDIENT: CONNECTING CHURCH AND COMMUNITY

At First Christian Church, Canton, Ohio, more than 500 people bagged 150,000 meals. The church promoted the mission project on radio and in newspapers. Volunteers included singles, families, neighbors, coworkers, small groups, youth groups, Bible school classes, friends, and people off the street. The age range was 7 to 75.

This event offered a perfect recipe not only for those folks to connect in service, but for believers and nonbelievers to work hand-in-hand.

A reporter writing for the Canton Repository included these details:

Carter Hammond, 9, a student at Taft Elementary School, admitted he would rather be doing something else on a Saturday morning, but was glad to be part of the effort, noting that helping others is the right thing to do.

With Carter at the table helping to fill packets of food was Dan Quinn, 15, of Perry Township.

“I came to help my mom”s friend,” he said. “This definitely makes me appreciate what I have. It is the little things you take for granted, like being [able] to get up and get something to eat while others don”t have that.”

THIRD INGREDIENT: SPANNING GENERATIONS

At Eastside Christian Church in Milford, Ohio, more than 1,000 volunteers bagged 299,583 meals at their event hosted in 2007.

More than $42,000 was raised at East-side to pay for the food. Church members held yard sales, coordinated family nights at local restaurants, and used their time and various talents to earn the money.

Like First Christian in Canton, Eastside used the food packing as an outreach event and encouraged nonmembers to serve. And as Park Chapel did, Eastside set up a “family zone” where families could serve together.

Event coordinator Shelby Baxter writes, “Children pulled loaded wagons containing cases of food to the shipping area. Elderly persons were assigned sit-down jobs, as needed. We advertised the event for ages 5 to 95 (and older) and they came!”

Baxter helped Lifeline host a food-bagging event at the National Missionary Convention in Tulsa. Lifeline, in conjunction with International Disaster Emergency Services (IDES) and Kids Against Hunger will again be bagging food at the 2009 NMC in Peoria, Illinois.

The perfect recipe combines service for all ages, bringing churches together, and engaging friends and neighbors to provide that special perfect recipe in an 11-ounce bag. Somewhere in Haiti right now a child is eating a meal packed by people who combined these ingredients in a perfect recipe for service and showing love.

 

 

 

To Use This Recipe . . .

(Web resources for those who would like to learn more)

Lifeline Christian Mission

www.lifeline.org

Contact Gretchen Devoe if your church would like to participate in the Kids Helping Kids ministry.

 

Park Chapel Christian Church, Greenfield, Indiana

www.parkchapel.org

Park Chapel has posted a video of their food packing event at www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0v4osGRJRo.

 

First Christian Church, Canton, Ohio

www.firstchristian.info

Read the whole article quoted here at www.cantonrep.com/news/x1092984416/Volunteers-help-to-feed-Haitis-hungry

 

Eastside Christian Church, Milford, Ohio

http://www.eastsideonline.cc/

 

National Missionary Convention

www.nmc-windows.org

 

 

 

Ben Simms serves as executive administrator with Miamisburg (OH) Christian Church and as a board member at Lifeline Christian Mission.