Keep Kay’s Can Well-Stocked By MARY ANN HAYES
he baskets containing
food donations for Kay’s Cornucopia (these are the baskets brought up at the
offering) are getting fuller each week. So far we have delivered 100 lbs. to the Episcopal
Service Alliance food bank and we have another 67 lbs. ready for delivery. (Forty-nine
pounds came in on Sunday, March 7). We managed to exceed our goal of 25 lbs. that week. We
are slowly but surely working out the kinks in how we collect, store, and transport the
food. And, several people have volunteered to take this project over and keep it running.
So the news is all pretty good. It is true that if every one did bring "a can a week" we would be doing better, but we’ve got a pretty good start.
Why are we doing this? To feed the hungry of Orange County, most certainly. But when Sandy Whittaker wrote the first draft of our action plan for this program, she listed the "Target Impact Groups" for this program as being "the hungry" and "the people of Saint Andrew’s." The impact on the first group is fairly obvious: perhaps there will be less hunger as a result of this program. But there is (we pray) another impact on this group as well: the knowledge that God (and the people of Saint Andrew’s as God’s instrument) cares about their situation.
But what of the impact upon the second group—the people of Saint Andrew’s? What I hope for myself is that I remain "mindful of the needs of others" and thankful for the great blessings I have; not just this week or this season, or even this year, but every week and every day. And more, that others (especially the children) will see in each of the people who bring some of their bounty to the altar each week, a concrete example of that thankfulness and of the changes that can be made by small efforts.
As we congratulate ourselves on getting this program off to a good start, let us try to remember that this is a commitment that doesn’t have a single day or a single season. We are blessed every day, and every day many are hungry. As we look back on this program a few years from now, I pray that we see more than something that was very successful for awhile but faded. I pray we see something to which we truly had a commitment and which has flourished over the years.
So please put something from Kay’s shopping list (canned fruit, soups, pasta sauce, pasta, hash, canned chili with meat, canned tuna, canned chicken, pork and beans, peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, or cereal) on your list this week and every week.