Stroudwater Food Pantry Status – 6/04/17

Hi Team – Yesterday was a busy Sunday as your Stroudwater Food Pantry served 43 families, with a total of 151 people receiving groceries.  8 new families joined us this week.

Our supermarket rescue food pickups, along with this week’s donations and food purchases, yielded a total of 1,671 lbs.  This week’s volunteers included, Rena, Autumn W, Michael C, Steve, Jean, Tammy, Adam, Angie and myself.

About this week:

• One of the services of the Stroudwater Food Pantry is RAP – our Roadside Assistance Program.  We developed it to address the needs of people standing in the middle of the road with signs asking for help.  On Tuesday a van load of teens from the My Place Teen Center in Westbrook traveled to our church and assembled 125 Roadside Assistance bags.  Each lunch bag-sized portion provides 1 person a two day supply of nonperishable food.  This outreach is our latest attempt to address the immediate needs of those who are homeless and hungry; it is also an opportunity to partner with another organization and encourage young people to get involved in feeding some of the most disadvantaged in our community.
• We took delivery of two new heavy duty food carts; this might not seem like such a big deal until you consider that during summer months it is common for us to receive and process a ton or more of food on Fridays, then turn it around and distribute it out to the public on Sundays.   The new carts make it easier on all of us when it comes to moving 50 lb. boxes of food around!
• This week we were able to provide prayers for anyone asking for prayer, and in doing so three people made decisions for Christ.  Praise the Lord!

It is only through the generous financial giving by dedicated people, both inside our church and outside our church, that your Stroudwater Food Pantry continues to thrive.  It is how we meet our equipment and operational expenses, and how we can afford new ways to extend our outreach to the most impoverished in our communities.  Thank you, and God Bless you all!    — Doug