After church on Sunday Oct. 5 instead of going out to lunch, more than 70 members of Bethel Lutheran Church in Winchester put on hairnets and plastic gloves, turning large bags of food into 11,808 packaged meals.
The food may not look like what you have on you dinner plate every night. The meals consisted of a blend of rice, soy, mixed vegetables, and a vitamin and mineral mixture.
“If you and I go to chipotle, it costs like 10 bucks, those meals cost 30 cents. Often these go to communities where if parents are even able to provide food for their kids, its terrible quality. If you get this and it tastes good and it’s healthy for you, that’s a big deal,” said Bryan Jaster, director of youth and faith formation at Bethel.
The church worked with a nonprofit called Youth Encounter, an organization that offers relational youth ministry resources to Christian communities. Several members of the Captive Free ministry team came to Bethel to provide leadership for the event.
Here’s how it worked: Bethel provided the funding for the meals (about 30 cents per meal) and the volunteers. Youth Encounter made arrangements to have the ingredients and packaging supplies sent a day or two before the event. Volunteers packaged the food into individual meals and load the meals into boxes. Youth Encounter also arranged to have the boxes picked up a few days after the event.
“From what they told us, we filled 55 boxes which could feed 32 children for an entire year.” said David Young, pastor of Bethel.
The day of the packaging event at Bethel was filled with camaraderie. Different tables competed to see who could fill the most bags and laughter ensued when youth brought attention to the hairnets they “rocked.” Jaster hopes that this project did more than just bring friends together, he hopes it brings together individuals across the globe who are all equally loved by God.
“It’s important for the life of the church to do something that will connect us with people that are far away that we wouldn’t be connected with without God’s Love,” Jaster said. “This is project made us do something that we don’t receive anything for, we won’t even receive thanks. It’s just an act of service.”
The church is already talking about doing another packing event next year with plans of inviting more of the community to take part.
If you are interested in organizing an event like this in your congregation go to www.youthencounter.org
