Fill a Basket, Fill a Need

Fill A Basket, Fill A Need was a complete success!  Many hands helped fill the baskets to be donated to Mt Olive Lutheran Church Food Pantry and many people will be touched by everyone's generosity of food, money and time.  In all, 50 baskets were filled with groceries and 53 bags were filled with food for a Thanksgiving Dinner -- including a $15 Turkey Voucher!  That's approximately 2,912 pounds of food!  Family sizes ranged from two to nine people and we estimated that 234 people will be helped this holiday season!  And on top of that, we exceeded the money needed to buy the vouchers and received additional money to help the food pantry directly -- so we were able to bless them with $2,725.00 (which includes the $750 needed to buy the vouchers). Um, wow!!

After blessing the baskets on Sunday, Nov. 22nd, it was an amazing group that headed downtown to deliver everything to Mt Olive.  It was even more amazing to be welcomed by many smiling faces and a lot of strong arms to carry baskets and bags into the Sunday School building.  After organizing the baskets by family size, a prayer was given over all the food and volunteers and each person who will be a recipient of the bounty!  It was very touching and members from both Mt. Olive and CLC expressed their appreciation for the help given and received, and for the relationships being built and sustained.

But it wasn't over there -- after the love fest (it really was) -- everyone went to the basement and enjoyed an excellent BBQ lunch (with all the fixin's) prepared by members of Mt. Olive in thanks and recognition to members of CLC for our work on their campus on Outreach Sunday and for our participation in helping the food pantry.  With tears in my eyes, I witnessed a beautiful site... all of us together, laughing and eating and sharing, after working months on an outreach project, and enjoying fellowship with our friends. Thanks be to God for guiding this project from the start to the finish.  Never a hiccup, but willing hands and generous hearts.  May this outreach continue for years to come and may we grow in faith with our friends at Mt Olive.

Want to help?  Let me know!  Our next serving date is Dec. 30th at 9:30 AM.
 
In Christ,
Linda

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