The food
On Wednesday afternoon, ten of our youth distributed bags of groceries door to door in Jefferson City. We gathered at the church for a brief prayer then headed to Save-A-Lot grocery store. After doing this a few times, we have our shopping down to a pretty good routine. The kids each grab a cart and go shopping for their item: bread; peanut butter; jelly; meals in a can; tuna; fruit cocktail; cereal; macaroni and cheese; and crackers/cookies. We try to purchase items that kids can eat since many are home on their own during the summer months.
We then take all the items back to the church and assemble bags. We staple a letter to each bag stating that this is a free gift – no strings attached! Just a way for us to show God’s love for our neighbors. We also list the church’s contact information if they need anything else.
We buy enough to assemble 50 bags of groceries.
The packed bags!
After the bags are assembled, we load them up in the van and drive to different low socioeconomic neighborhoods. We take a bag, go door-to-door in pairs and offer them a bag. We always are met with warm reception and many “thank-you’s” and “God bless you”. Our youth get to see how others in our community live and that we have many needs in our backyard. One grandmother thanked us and told us that she had run out of food the week before and had been feeding her grandchildren microwave popcorn. There are so many needs and we are learning as a youth group that God commands us to love our neighbor.
Pictures