Blessings you can sink your teeth into

This past week the Tarrant Area Food Bank began making deliveries of fresh produce to schools in the area.  The food is intended to help anyone in the community who is in need and the school is used as the distribution location due to its large parking lot and gym.  Six or more members of the FUMC Iredell helped unload the pallets of food, sort out the "culls", organize it and assist in distribution to about 40 or so families.  We also called several families that we knew could use the help but had probably not heard of the delivery.  

After the delivery time was over and before the food bank representatives left, the food was loaded into a UM member's truck who then drove around town to some families we thought needed some help.  Leftover food from each of the distributions in the area were delivered to the Helping Hands food pantry in Meridian.

The next morning in worship, we talked about how wonderful the TAFB delivery had been for our town - and how much fun we had helping people load up bags of produce to feed to their families.

When I went to Helping Hands on the Monday after the TAFB delivery, I was delighted to see the leftover produce filling the large refrigerator cases.  We served 29 families that Monday at HH, and each one received a large amount of fresh produce - tomatoes, carrots, cucmbers, citrus and pears.  So many of us take fresh food for granted.  But these families often cannot afford it and the HH food bank often does not receive much to give out in the way of fruits and vegetables.  The TAFB delivery was a double blessing to the community.