| Every Friday during the school year, 17 children who attend Creekside Elementary School in Suffolk, Va., anxiously await to see what items will be in their weekend food pack.”The school administrators told me that even though the kids aren’t allowed to take their bags of food home until the end of the school day, kids will start stopping by the office at lunch on Friday to see if the packages have been delivered,” said Babs Benson, the outreach coordinator at Faith Lutheran Church in Suffolk, Va.
“It’s sweet, but it also breaks my heart.”
On Dec. 22, the children won’t be excited about food, but festively wrapped presents.
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| Members of Faith Lutheran Church pack food for 17 elementary children to take home each weekend. |
After hearing about weekend feeding programs run by other Lutheran churches in the Virginia Synod, Benson was inspired to start a back pack program at Faith Lutheran 3 years ago.
“We started out with five kids the first year and have been able to grow to 17 this year,” she said.
The growth of this ministry has transpired because of the formation of new partnerships with St. Andrews Lutheran and Holy Communion Lutheran. Both churches are located in Portsmouth and are pastored by The Rev. Aaron Fuller. Each congregation collects food during the year and periodically brings their donation to Faith Lutheran.
This year, a Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Suffolk, has joined the effort by providing monthly donations as well.
“Something about hungry children transcends political affiliation, traditions, religion and any other beliefs,” Benson said. “Everyone can agree that they don’t want children to go hungry.”
Last year at the beginning of the Christmas season, Faith Lutheran decided that they wanted to do something special for the children that they had been ministering to throughout the year.
With the leadership of Benson, families at Faith “adopted” one or more children and made sure they had at least two presents to open on Christmas morning. This year the congregation continuing this effort.
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| The children served through Faith’s backpack ministry will have at least two presents on Christmas morning |
In November, a form for the children’s parents went home in the weekend food package. Firstly, the form asked if they would like to participate in the “adopt a child” Christmas program. Then, the parent was asked to create a wish list for their child and answer questions that included the child’s likes and dislikes and even their favorite color.
This year Benson expects 20-25 children to be adopted.
Families at Faith Lutheran who are providing presents are asked to choose one piece of clothing and one toy per child so that there is consistency among all the recipients.
Usually the gifts are around $40 each, but occasionally a church member’s generosity just can’t be stopped.
“Last year, we had one child that requested a bike,” Benson said. “We were able to make that happen because of some incredible, unsung heroes in our congregation.”
Parents at Faith Lutheran use this Christmas project as not only an opportunity to impact elementary school students in their community, but also their own children.
“They make it a family project,” Benson said. “Parents will take their kids to the store and ask them to pick out which present a child may want.”
After all the presents are wrapped, they will be delivered to the school on December 22nd.
When asked why her congregation does Micah’s Backpack through the year and the “adopt a child” Christmas program, Benson said that if you don’t have outreach from your church then you are just a gathering of people.
“What makes church, church is that we are Ambassadors to Christ and we are so excited about our faith that we have to share it with others. What better way is there to show the love of Christ than by taking care of children?” |
