Who knew that people could be fed just by taking a backpack home once a month?
One group of people figured out there was a need for students and their families and made it their mission to fulfill that need and Do Good!
Who comes up with an idea like this?
About 7 years ago a Sunday school class with about 20-25 members were studying a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan, which is where their inspiration came from.
This group of people have always been mission minded. They support non-local missions such as a children’s home in Appalachia, Indian Reservations, and the African Christian Mission.
Supporting missions around the world is very important but it is just as important to support the mission of the world around you.
The first step to getting this project going is finding out who to serve through this and how to go about it.
Serving a local mission, that should be easy right?
Operation Now is a mission group from a nearby community that helps in feeding people in need, which made them the one to turn to when it came time to figure out who to serve with the backpack program.
Through this connection the “Phi Chi” Sunday school class found out there was a great need to feed kids in their own community, especially at the end of the month.
The next step was to connect with school officials to find out the best way to go about implementing this mission.
It was quickly discovered that Doing Good through this project was going to require just a smidge of effort… or maybe a lot of effort.
Once permission was granted from school officials the group was ready to start and privacy was to be a big part of the process.
They weren’t given any names but only numbers of families that could use the help which at first they thought 10 would be a good place to start.
It didn’t take long to figure out that the need was far greater than they could have imagined.
What to do next? Do Good of course!
The school social worker informed the group that there were 50 families that had great need for this (140-150 kids).
OK, time to step up and make this happen.
Now they knew exactly what to do. Buy backpacks, fill them with enough food for 2 breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks and send them home with the students from school at the end of every month.
They quickly discovered that they needed some assistance in filling the backpacks with all of that food as the bill for filling them comes to $500 per month.
So they asked for help from Little Giant Grocery for general food items and Hucks convenient stores to supply a coupon for a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs to feed these families… and they obliged without question.
These local businesses love to serve those in their community and this is just one way that these and so many others do so.
Mission accomplished… for now!
It is amazing what can happen when people get inspired to Do Good for others in need.
This project is, and will continue to be, a blessing to these students and their families.
Cool thing is that this is just the start of good things to come — check back for more stories of people and groups of people Doing Good in the world around them in creative ways.
