Church food drive approaches 10 tons

Church members drop off donations of food as part of the “Share Your Lunch” campaign at First Assembly of God North Little Rock. The church hopes to collect 10 tons of food.
Church members drop off donations of food as part of the “Share Your Lunch” campaign at First Assembly of God North Little Rock. The church hopes to collect 10 tons of food.

Three weeks into a "Share Your Lunch: Feeding Hungry Children" campaign, the congregation of First Assembly of God North Little Rock has collected more than nine tons of food. At that pace the church should far exceed its goal of 10 tons (20,000 pounds) of food during the nine-week drive.

"Nine tons of food in three weeks is crazy," said the Rev. Rod Loy, senior pastor.

The Rev. Patrick Lander, executive pastor, said the total as of Tuesday was 19,164 pounds. At the end of the campaign the church will donate the food to food banks and churches across the state.

"We really felt like we wanted to distribute the food around the state to people already doing great things," Loy said. "We've contacted food banks, schools and churches and looked for people who are doing good work feeding the hungry."

The week after Easter they'll load up pickups and trailers and drive all over the state to deliver the food.

"Share Your Lunch" is simple. Each week members of the congregation bring a specific food item to donate. The first week was macaroni and cheese; then came peanut butter and cereal. This weekend it's soup.

Some bring one or two items. Others have gone all in and emptied store shelves, Loy said.

Members have been posting photos of their shopping sprees with carts filled with macaroni and cheese or peanut butter to the church's Facebook page.

Loy said he decided that the church needed to do more to help the hungry after watching a news report about child hunger in Arkansas with his wife, Cindy.

"I was hearing stats that I've never heard before or maybe I never paid attention to," he said. "I've been in Arkansas 22 years and at that moment it grabbed my heart that I needed to do something. In the face of overwhelming need, our tendency is to say, 'What difference can I make?' So we walk away from overwhelming needs."

Loy said the church may not be able to feed every child in Arkansas, but it can help.

"It seemed we needed to do more than give money, so we said let's everybody each week bring an item and see if we can cause a [shortage] in central Arkansas for mac and cheese. Let's see if we can sell out the shelves," Loy said. "Buy an extra box of cereal this week or an extra jar of peanut butter and together we can make a massive difference."

Businesses, schools and hospitals have joined in. Teams are posted at each entrance for weekend services. As food is brought in it's boxed up, labeled, weighed and stacked along the main hallway.

"If you walk in the church now all down the main hallway the stacks are 5 1/2 feet high. Boxes and boxes of food," Loy said. "It has a wonderful sense of momentum and excitement in the church as we see what we can do."

Loy said they set a goal of 10 tons of food -- an outsize number, or so he thought.

"When we presented it to the church, I said we need to set a goal that we can only reach with God's help," he said. "I think it feels good to not sit on the sidelines. Our real goal is not for people to look at First Assembly North Little Rock and say, 'Wow, what a great thing you're doing.' We want to feed hungry kids."

And they want other churches to do the same.

"We want to inspire other groups and churches that they can make a difference," Loy said. "Maybe every church can't do 10 tons but a 1,000 pounds make a huge difference. It's amazing when you start talking to food banks, as soon as they get it they give it away. They are running at a shortage so we want to make hungry kids a priority."

In addition to the food collection, the church also collected an $85,000 offering earlier this month. That money will be used to pack more than 300,000 meals for the hungry on March 8.

Information is available online at firstnlr.com/shareyourlunch.

Religion on 02/28/2015

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