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Happy
July
4th
Church gearing up to
launch new food pantry
by Tom Montgomery
Editor
Members of a local church are planning to take a bite out of the financial struggles many area families are facing these days by setting up a mobile food pantry this month and distributing food to anyone in need.
No strings attached.
The congregation of the Cass City Missionary Church has spent weeks researching the project and making contacts with other groups that have taken on similar efforts.
The church has also established a relationship with the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan in Flint, which provides food to people in need through 350 partner agencies in 22 Michigan counties.
The church hopes to draw support for the project from other area congregations as well as the community - anyone willing to get involved - in an effort to continue the free food distributions in the future from a permanent home somewhere in the village.
The Cass City Missionary Church has been the force behind "Revive", an annual spring outreach that began as a children's fair and community services over a 2-day period. This year, the celebration was trimmed down to one day and included a community pantry offering residents free household items and clothing. Attendance was estimated at 500 people.
"We've had our Revive event for the past few years, and especially this year, with the community food pantry -- the response we had was just overwhelming," said the
Rev. Bob Sweeney, pastor. "So many people said it was meeting needs for them. That caught our attention."
Which led church members to contact the organizers of a food pantry in Marlette for advice, and the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan for the food to distribute.
Their initial efforts will come to a head Friday, July 11, with their first distribution, which will be staged at the corner of Main and Seeger streets (behind the Cass City Municipal Building) from 4 to 6 p.m. Volunteers will be doing all the work, but families planning to take advantage of the offer are asked to bring bags or boxes to hold their food.
"It's called a mobile food pantry because we don't have a permanent place yet," Sweeney explained. "Anyone in need is welcome. There are no financial guidelines for this. We're not looking at W-2s."
The church will provide a number of volunteers, "but we'll take more. You can never have enough," said Sweeney, who is hopeful that others will be willing to lend a hand for the distribution, which is expected to provide enough food for up to 500 families.
"We need quite a few people," he added. "They're (food bank) going to bring a semi load of food. I think it's at least 12 pallets."
It's a big undertaking, one that Sweeney and other members of the church would like to see embraced by other churches as well as the local business community.
"As this grows, we hope that other churches will get on board. We want that - we want this to be a community effort," he said.
As for the missionary church's role, Sweeney pointed out that supporting various missions in this country and abroad has always been a priority, and setting up a food pantry is a part of that effort. "We're trying to make sure that, as we receive money and other financial resources, that we're trying to reach all the areas that (God) said we should be reaching. We have to be sure we're meeting needs in this area."
The bottom line, according to Sweeney, is that organizing a food pantry offers the church another opportunity to reach out to the community.
"The theme for Revive has been communicating to the community that Jesus transforms lives," said Sweeney, who added there are countless examples in the Bible where Jesus met physical as well as spiritual needs. "This is definitely a needy time," he said, "and it's just one tangible way for us to help out.
"It's been fun. We don't know every step we're taking, but you can see (God) opening doors as we take each step," Sweeney said of the project.
"This is really what we should be doing," he added. "You have to get out there in the community. That's how the church grew - we see that in the New Testament - and that hasn't changed."
Editor's note: Anyone interested in getting involved in the project can learn more by calling the church at 872-2729, or by logging onto www.revivecc.org.
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Also in this issue:
Special Section:
Fourth of July
(PDF format)
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