September 15, 2014 in Congregations, Equipping, Faith in action
A Growing Approach to Food Insecurity
From the seeds that planted a garden to help a local food pantry, Lutheran Church of the Resurrection (LCR) in Yardley is nurturing an ever-widening circle of ministry to people experiencing food insecurity.
“God keeps putting opportunities in front of us to serve the hungry and the homeless,” says Diane Casey, LCR’s coordinator of serving hearts ministries.
Over the last decade as the church identified its assets for ministry, there was discussion about what to do with a plot of land adjacent to the church. The church collected food for a local pantry; why not add to that supply with a garden? But the idea remained just an idea.
“About four years ago when I joined the church, Pastor Sharon (Taylor) asked us to list our gifts, and I said gardening,” says Nicola Fiscarelli, who had owned a nursery, greenhouse or landscaping company for 40 years. Soon Fiscarelli was plotting to start a 50-by-50-foot garden with fruit, produce and herbs.
Nicola Fiscarelli (right) waters the garden he planted at Resurrection, Yardley to help local food pantries.
“Initially the church gave me some money,” Fiscarelli says. “My son was moving and donated raised beds and soils. The bulk of the funds have come from Thrivent (Financial).” Fiscarelli estimates it costs about $500 a year to keep the garden growing. About a dozen volunteers get involved in some way, whether preparing the soil and planting, watering, weeding, or picking, washing and delivering the produce.
“This year the garden project has exploded,” Casey says. “We have doubled the number of people working, and doubled the amount of food we give away.” In September LCR made three deliveries a week, totaling more than 300 pounds each week.
“We are convinced we should be partnering with other non-profits and building bridges, rather than reinventing the wheel.” – Diane Casey
The bulk of the crop of tomatoes, zucchini, raspberries, lettuces, onions and eggplant goes to the ERA Food Pantry in Langhorne. Once a month LCR hosts a shared community meal, with produce fresh from the garden on the menu. It is one of a series of shared meals coordinated by Advocates for the Homeless and Those in Need, a local charity, feeding the needy in Lower Bucks almost every day.
Volunteer Karen Yerkes picks eggplant at the Resurrection Garden.
From this base, God has been leading the people of LCR to a number of hunger-related ministries. Over the summer a core group hosted a showing of the documentary “A Place At The Table,” with conversation about local food insecurity. From that conversation a Food Insecurity Alliance is forming with representatives from LCR, God’s Love in Newtown, and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Yardley.
The Alliance is talking with St. Mary Hospital about helping to support their food backpack program for local children. Each week hundreds of backpacks are sent home with children on Fridays, “because we know on the weekends many don’t have access to food,” Casey says. The children return the backpacks on Mondays to be refilled.
“This is a huge undertaking and it would be difficult for us to sustain on our own,” she says. “But with an alliance of congregations and an existing program, we can support it.”
Members of LCR’s informal network of hunger servants are on the board of Family Promise of Lower Bucks, a network that will arrange for homeless families with children to sleep in local churches at night, then get support with work skills, budgeting, and creating resumes during the day. The group, which expects to begin serving in 2015, “is truly grassroots,” Casey said, involving Christian, Buddhist and Muslim communities.
“This is a huge undertaking and it would be difficult for us to sustain on our own. But with an alliance of congregations and an existing program, we can support it.” – Diane Casey
Other members at LCR are instrumental in The Way Home, another non-profit that recently bought a home in Bristol to shelter homeless men.
“We are convinced we should be partnering with other non-profits and building bridges, rather than reinventing the wheel,” Casey says.
Pastor Marissa Krey, who came to God’s Love after serving as an advocacy developer for the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania, found that there was a core group with interest in hunger issues at her church. “After I learned that Resurrection had already done the really hard work” generating interest, it made sense to partner, she said.
Having some bench strength allows the direct service ministries to continue while allowing time to vision and explore ways to advocate for those in need. “It’s about building relationships with people and really understanding the magnitude of the issues,” Krey says.
“It’s a very Holy Spirit-led effort,” she says. “I don’t know what the next step is, but every next step involves more people and more energy. It’s a thrilling movement.”
Story by Bob Fisher
Photos by the Rev. Jesse Brown
