Creating A Spark

This week we had a fantastic mission speaker at church, Edwina Gateley, poet, theologian, artist, writer, lay minister, advocate, and single mom. The first night she spoke to us about Trust, as in trusting God, walking in faith, walking in trust that all our needs will be met.

She explained how God is always eager to reassure and comfort us so that we might believe in our possibilities and become a holy people. She told us the original word for “holy” in Hebrew meant “to practice,” as in practicing your faith.

Simply practicing our faith makes us holy…doing the right thing, reaching out to those in need. Holy isn’t reserved for only the special few. Everyone’s hands are holy….it’s what we choose to do with our hands that makes a difference. Do we use them to help—or to hurt--others?

The second night she spoke of personal transformation, how the Holy Spirit is always waiting to s-t-r-e-t-c-h us to recognize God’s presence in ourselves and all people. She told story after story of personal transformation in herself and the lives of the people she has worked with in Africa and on the streets of Chicago, where she ministered to recovering drug addicts and prostitutes.

Last night she challenged us to use our gifts to reflect God’s love in our dealings with others, in particular the poor, the homeless, the abandoned and marginalized people in our world. She acknowledged that bad things are happening the world over, but we can’t focus on that, we need to seek out the sparks of light and help those sparks to shine more brightly. Again, she shared story after story of personal transformation.

And she reminded us that every little bit of good we do makes a difference, to someone, somewhere.

So today was soup making day. I got out the stock pot and opened the freezer and filled the pot with leftover pot roast, crock pot chicken, an assortment of savory sauces and gravies made from previously made roasts, three bags of vegetables, and a magic array of spices. Took me three hours to get it to taste “just right,” but in the end, it all came together beautifully…and the aroma…nothing better than the smell of home made soup wafting through the house.

Unless it’s accompanied by the sweet smell of baking. While the soup bubbled, I baked two cakes, and cleaned the kitchen. Then, after the soup had cooled, I put it into the containers provided by the homeless shelter, and delivered it, along with two dozen pairs of socks I bought at Christmas time, but never got around to dropping off.

Tonight, someone without a home will at least be able to enjoy some home made soup, made with real beef and chicken, a piece of cake, and a clean pair of socks.

It’s just a spark, but it counts all the same. Is there somewhere in your life you can create a spark or two?

Feeding the Homeless -- A Shift in the Warehouse

A hungry stomach can not hear. ~Jean de la Fontaine, French Poet, 1621-1695

Last Saturday I went with my church to volunteer at the local food bank. It was an eye-opening experience, and one I hope to repeat regularly. You know me, I’m all about food and feeding people, so this kind of thing is right up my alley. A couple dozen of us—singles, couples, and families with kids--showed up for a three-hour stint in the warehouse, inspecting and repacking food for distribution to those in need. Ahead of us, just on their way out the door, was a group of about the same size from Gannon University.

I was startled when, after our group arrived, one of the young men in the Gannon group gave up his chair and rolled it over for me to sit in. Chivalry does still exist in some parts of the world. Unfortunately, instead of taking a moment to appreciate that fact, after I thanked him and he left, I turned to the friend I had arrived with and asked, “Do I look that old?”

I didn’t sit in the chair. I spend most of my time sitting. I had come for a workout…and a workout I got.

Our first assignment was to watch a 13-minute video on how to recognize foods that the Food Bank can not accept. For instance, any food that has been packed in the same box or container with any open cleaning products must be considered contaminated and thrown out. There’s no way the food bank can risk food contamination.

So if you make donations to your local food bank, or supervise collections for food drives and such at your church or school, please, please, please separate the stuff with chemicals in it from the stuff for people to eat, just to be safe, or all of your hard work and good intentions may go for nothing.

Also, as much as they would like to, the Food Bank can not accept any home-canned goods. We all know they taste the best, because they’re made with love, but unless they are commercially sealed, they are a no-go at the Food Bank.

So make sure you give your excess home-canned goods to your family and friends. If you don’t have enough friends, you can send some to me…I love home-canned anything :). I would also be able to use it in my soup (and now baking) ministry for the homeless shelter.

I’m serious. If you have home-canned stuff you want to get rid of, email me at Liana (at) lianalaverentz.com and we’ll work something out…a win-win for everyone.

But back to the Food Bank. Any packages that were open and therefore might have been touched by bugs or rodents (face it, where there’s food, there’s bugs and rodents) had to be thrown out as well. But the good news is, at the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwestern Pennsylvania, none of that food goes to waste. It’s all collected in a separate place, and picked up by an Amish farmer, who converts it into slop for his pigs.

On this day, we contributed opened boxes of Fruit Loops, Rice Krispies, and many other brands of breakfast cereal to the (future slop) bin, as well as some fresh bread that was in wrappers that had gotten ripped somewhere along the way.

A lot of things like the cereal comes from stores, still in the manufacturer’s original case lot cartons, which have been damaged in shipping somehow. Either crushed or torn or poked through with the equipment used to move the case lots around. So these damaged case lots are sent to the food bank, where volunteers like us open the case lot cartons, separate the damaged individual boxes of cereal from the ones that are not damaged, inspect the food, repackage what we can—(if only the outer packaging is damaged we can tape it back up—but if there are any holes in the bag that would expose any food, out it goes)—and recombine it into new case lots for the Food Bank to distribute. The extras are then sent to the Food Bank’s internal “grocery store” where individuals can go up and down the aisles and pick up small amounts of different donated foods.

As for the bread, it came from a local commercial bakery, and was still fresh. All we had to do was take it off the racks, inspect the bread for mold and the bags for holes, then repack the inspected bread—buns and loaves of every shape, size, and color—into cartons provided by the Food Bank. Taped shut, and labeled BREAD, they went onto nearby pallets and created fresh case lots for the Food Bank to shrink wrap and distribute.

Before we knew it, our time was up, and our work was done. As the English dramatist John Heywood said, “Many hands make light work.” But the Second Harvest Food Bank has many opportunities for group and family volunteering to help those in need. The Food Bank welcomes children age six and up, and even has child-friendly projects for them to work on. The Food Bank also sponsors specific Family Days, with shifts available between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. and Family Nights, with help needed from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. It’s a fun way to involve the whole family—be it your individual family or your community family. Get a group together and go. All you need to do is call and make your reservation.

Who are those in need? Well, here are some Fast Facts from the Second Harvest Food Bank, the largest non-profit food distribution organization in Northwestern Pennsylvania. Second Harvest solicits, inventories, and distributes donated products to 254 member agencies that directly serve people facing hard times. During fiscal year 2009-2010, Second Harvest distributed 7.7 million pounds of food to 72,600 people in NWPA.

They can’t serve this many people without help from people like you. Three ways you can help are to donate money (for every $1 donation, Second Harvest can obtain $17 worth of food), donate time (hours are available Monday through Saturday…check their website for more information), or you can donate food directly. Second Harvest accepts non-perishable food donations Monday through Saturday.

They then distribute these foods to the people who need it through various member agencies, like churches, food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, kids cafes, child care centers, backpack programs, and senior citizens food programs. The people who benefit from the Second Harvest Food Bank include the homeless, single parents, senior citizens, children, the working poor, the unemployed and underemployed, the disabled, and families in crisis situations.

That’s a lot of people needing food. Is there someone you can help feed today?

Feeding the World - One Bowl at a Time

Most of the poverty and misery in the world is due to bad government, lack of democracy, weak states, internal strife, and so on. ~Billionaire philanthropist George Soros

Well, we’ve gone from 9 degrees last Saturday to a balmy 21 degrees today, but only if the sun comes out. And only if you’re somewhere inside, snug and warm and well-fed. Otherwise, it’s bitter cold and gray and dismal.
There was an article in the paper this week….I don’t get the paper, but I read the headlines as I’m going in and out of the post office or grocery store. Hunger “Alarming” it says. I make a mental note to borrow a copy from someone later.
As luck would have it, my son comes home with that very same paper. A teacher offered his extras that day, and for some reason, my son was motivated to take one. This sort of thing happens to me all the time. Ask and you shall receive. I decide I need something and somehow it shows up in my life. Like the day I bought my soup stock pot.
My soup project is going twice as well as hoped. From just that one post, I had two donations for ingredients, thank you Gail and Ellie, which is enough to make three more soups. During a chance conversation with another woman, who as it happens also cooks for the homeless, I came home with a huge ham bone with lots of meat still on it, and 5 pounds of potatoes. Another friend, who loves to use coupons, says she can get me name brand vegetables for 30 cents a package, and rice and beans for next to nothing.
So today I’m making soup again. My third batch in just over 30 days. First I made this spicy Italian vegetable, with leftover broth from a pot roast. The second time I was in the mood for split pea and ham with lentils. So were a lot of people, because the first store I went to was completely out of split peas.
That one turned out awesome, if I may say so myself. I had two bowls, and made a spare pot for my lunches during the week. Today, Superbowl Sunday, it’s ham and potato. I boiled the ham for stock yesterday, took the bone out and cut off the meat, and set the broth in the garage to cool. Today I’ll scoop off the fat and add the potatoes and make soup. Since the ham and potatoes were donated, all it will cost me is some time and a gallon of milk.
An unprecedented number of people in the Erie area need emergency food. According to the article in the paper, “There has been a 40 percent increase in the number of people seeking emergency food assistance compared to four years ago, with nearly 22,000 of those being children.”
Children. Children are going hungry in this country.
There’s no excuse for it.
Nearly 70 percent of the people served by our local food pantry, Second Harvest, live below the federal poverty line, and nearly one third of the clients served by the agency have been unemployed for two years or less. Nearly one in four residents in Erie lives below the poverty level.
According to the study, 34 percent of people served by Second Harvest reported frequently having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities. Eleven percent said they were homeless, a population that has more than doubled in Erie in the past 18 months.
In December, Second Harvest locally distributed nearly 758,000 pounds of emergency food, the largest one-month total since the agency’s inception in 1982.
The article goes on to state that more than 37 million people in the United States, including 14 million children, received emergency food in 2009 through the network of agencies served by Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization. That’s a 46 percent surge compared to Feeding America’s previous food study in 2006.
And according to their study, the rise in the region’s needy is likely to continue this year and beyond.
Meanwhile, according to the same paper, the auto show rolls into town and casino table games are coming to Pennsylvania.
Just what we need to put food on the table.

Helping the Homeless, Part Two

Stewardship is often defined as everything we do
after we say, “I believe.”
stew•ard•ship
Function: noun
1: the office, duties, and obligations of a steward
2: the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially: the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care
• We are God’s; ALL of our being belongs to God, our bodies, minds, and spirits
• All of our time, talents, and treasures are from God, for God, and the property of God
• We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.
— Winston Churchill
• No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. — Calvin Coolidge

We are just passing through this world and are given and entrusted with Time, Talent, and Treasure to use for God’s glory and our good.

Last week my email box was flooded with emails about blizzards and frigid temperatures and people shoveling their cars out from under mountains of snow, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the homeless who live in their cars or worse in this type of weather. What does it say about us as a society that we spend hours upon hours shopping for gifts half of us don’t need or want, just because the media tells us to, while we let people sleep in cars and cardboard boxes and on city sidewalks?

Call me a Scrooge if you want—I don’t decorate or bake or go to Christmas parties, and this year I probably won’t even send out Christmas cards--but over 90,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles alone. One friend wrote of hundreds of people living in cardboard boxes along riverbanks in Colorado because the shelters are all full, in temperatures that dipped to 26 degrees below last week. These are families with men, women and children. Another mentioned seeing people sleeping in the streets in Philadelphia, a phenomenon that is repeated nightly in cities all across the nation.

Yesterday, I had my post all written, then accidentally deleted it. By then an hour and a half had passed, and I was hungry. So I went to my refrigerator and just stood there, staring at all the food in it and being grateful that I had so many choices when there are so many who have none. Being grateful that I was in a warm and dry home of my own while the wind blew and the rain poured. I can’t even begin to imagine the desolation the homeless must feel.

I then went to Mass, to give thanks for all that I’ve been given, put a check for the church’s food pantry in the collection plate, and although I was not hungry, agreed to go to lunch with a friend simply because I could.

I wanted to do so being aware of the blessing that was, to be able to walk into a restaurant and order whatever I wanted. We sat there for hours, talking and catching up on our lives. We would have closed the place down, had it been a different type of establishment. But for those few hours we were dry and warm and full, unlike so many others in our country, and for that I was grateful.

I want to ask you here to take a moment and think about the blessings you’ve been given, and find a way to share those blessings in this time of hardship for so many. Find out where your local homeless shelters are, make a pot of soup or a casserole or a few dozen extra Christmas cookies and drop them off on your way out shopping or to that Christmas party or concert. Take the money you would spend on a gift that a friend or relative doesn’t want or need, and donate it to your local food pantry. Drop a few dollars into the can outside the store and offer the Salvation Army bellringer a warm hello and a smile. Don’t avoid eye contact and pretend he or she isn’t there. Dig those old Christmas trees and ornaments you don’t use any more out of the attic or basement and donate them to someplace that could use a little Christmas cheer.

Go through your closets and collect your old coats and hats and gloves and blankets and drop them off at the nearest church or distribution center. They’re everywhere, if you just look. Take your children’s old books and toys to a community shelter for the kids there to read and play with. Take some time out of your frenzied Christmas preparations to volunteer at a community shelter and give the regular workers a break from the exhaustion that comes from serving others. Remember the reason for the season.

There are so many ways to help, just using what we already have on hand. And don’t forget to pray. Prayer costs nothing, but goes a long, long way.

Time, talent, and treasure. There is power in numbers. If everyone who can afford to did just a little, think of how much nicer a Christmas it could be for all of us.