Food For Families and Home Repair

While the international relief work of stitching blankets, layette items and school bags goes on in the sewing room and kits of all kinds are packed and boxed year round in the UMCOR Depot, community outreach involves more variety. This week, in addition to assisting at Head Start, Chez Hope, Raintree Elementary and local Hearts and Hands home repair projects, we also took charge of the St. Mary's Parish monthly Food For Families commodities distribution. Short term volunteers are always free to choose among offered activities. Some work at the Depot or on home repair all week; many choose to try several things.

"Two in the truck bed!" "One in the back seat, driver's side!" "Four in the trunk!" The callers barked directions. The packers made sure the right number of food boxes were placed in the designated spot for each driver. The Depot parking lot was a beehive of activity as clients and their proxies collected monthly boxed grocery items. The fourth Wednesday morning of each month, paperwork is activated and filed in the Sager Brown Gymnasium, then people drive over to the Depot for pick-up. Over six hundred boxes were sent out between 8:30 and 11 a.m. Eighty more will go out in the next week to stragglers. Sager Brown signs folks up, Catholic Charities verifies eligibility, boxes food up (each box contains cereals, juices,
pasta, canned fruits and vegetables, and cheese), and delivers pallets of boxes to
distribution points, and, locally, Sager Brown distributes the boxes. As Abraham Lincoln
said, it's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.

Home repair projects are designed to provide safety, security and sanitation for the residences of low income seniors and disabled persons. Since 2003, Sager Brown has completed 440 projects, all done by volunteers. There are ninety homes (probably eighteen months worth of projects) waiting to be done. Last week we finished weatherizing and securing a trailer home for two grandparents. Their grandchildren sang and danced, then we prayed the home would shelter them and provide a place of happiness and peace. My supervisor said it was the first time she had ever seen the grandfather smile.