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~~ A Prophetic Call ~~ Long ago, Jesus looked at the people gathered around him and urged the disciples to give them something to eat. Using a gift of loaves and fishes, he created a community where there were. . .no hungry neighbors.
Every day, thousands of our neighbors struggle to get enough to eat. The United Methodist people can provide the resources to ensure a new community in our own time where there are...no hungry neighbors.
Consider these realities: Michele, a working mother of two from Greenville, who has to choose between paying the rent and putting food on the table. Jamiel, a child from Raleigh, who dreads the summer because he won't receive free meals at school. Frank, an elderly man in Warren County, who struggles to get by on a fixed monthly check. People like Michele, Jamiel, and Frank are at risk of hunger today and every day. Thousands more suffer temporarily when a natural disaster like Hurricane Floyd strikes.
Thus, the need for a special effort in all 832 churches in the North Carolina Conference, a united effort, called No Hungry Neighbors.
We have a goal of continuing to feed and to focus on those in our communities who are hungry, those whom Jesus calls "the least of these," those with whom Jesus says he is found. We will raise funds that are needed to provide infrastructure, new food distribution, initiatives to feed children, and growth in endowment for the Society of St. Andrew and the North Carolina Food Banks.
This ministry is in coalition with the Breaking Bread community campaign of the Food Bank of North Carolina, an area Food Bank serving 34 counties of central and eastern North Carolina,. Your local congregation is urged to participate in No Hungry Neighbors in ways that involve all ages in your congregation. You are invited to plan activities in your church to increase understanding of the systemic issues of poverty in our state. Children are invited to keep hunger banks, youth are invited to raise funds, and adults are invited to offer gifts for this important effort. We eagerly await the creative response of your local church and anticipate great generosity across our annual conference.
The Food Bank of North Carolina seeks to increase their capacity to 30 million pounds of food distributed each year to their network of more than 800 partner agencies through their branches and partnering locations in Aberdeen, Durham, Greenville, Wilmington and Raleigh. If your congregation is located outside of these 34 counties, your gifts will benefit the food banks located in Fayetteville or Elizabeth City. Your financial support is needed to continue and expand the good work of these organizations.
Gifts for No Hungry Neighbors are a Conference Advance Special of the NC Conference. 40 cents of every dollar given will be designated for the Society of St. Andrew. 60 cents of every dollar given will be designated for the Food Bank in the region in which the dollar was given.
We look forward to this great work. In our own time, in this moment of kairos, may God bring about the day when we have no hungry neighbors, through the activity of our hands and our hearts, and through the blessing of abundance in love.
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