August 30, 2023
Word on the Street....is that the Calvary Episcopal Church Food Pantry is a "Happening Place!" Just last Saturday, thanks to the many donations of school supplies, an entire food shelf was filled with enough supplies for all of our pantry neighbor's children. Bette, a retired Buncombe County School teacher, helped neighbors select items appropriate for their grade level. Conscious Alliance and Orchard Valley have partnered with us to feed families in our community experiencing food insecurity. Their iconic ALLIANCE of brands, bands, artists, and fans use their time and talents to make it all happen. They donated cases of trail mix in four flavors filled with fruit and nuts. Perfect for lunch boxes or snack time.
On Friday morning while we were stocking shelves, a member of Lutheran Church of the Nativity and her daughter arrived with food and an extremely generous monetary donation. The parishioner's daughter held a fund raiser and a food drive. We truly appreciate her reaching out to help in feeding our community. Also reaching out the hand of friendship was a group of eager Christ School students who helped in the garden. Our neighbors are so blessed to receive organically grown vegetables to serve their families.
Then the most unusual thing happened – a donation large enough to fill up one of our gray carts put a huge grin on everyone's face. Cases of Girl Scout cookies were given out as a bonus item to our neighbors. Can you envision what could top these cookies!?! Along comes the Fletcher Methodist Church Rotary Club. Two pickup trucks were filled with Roma tomatoes for Saturday distribution. You guessed it – definitely a three-box day with all these extras!
"Save the Date!" CECFP will be having our own Hunger Walk as part of the Henderson County Hunger Coalition 41st Annual Walk. On Saturday, September 16 at 11:00 am we will gather at the entrance to the pantry and walk to the garden and back. All are welcome to join us. On Saturday we welcomed 129 families representing 456 individuals. Six new families had the opportunity to shop with a volunteer and select from the donations received this week.
We had lots of donations this week: Bimbos and City Bakery filled our bread racks with bread and bakery items. Bright Farms donated 20 cases of salad kits. Other donors include Flavor-First-tomatoes and corn, Wal-Mart and Big Lots-misc items and food, Project Dignity-feminine products, Humane Society- dog/cat food and MilkCo-milk. Nativity Lutheran, Fletcher Methodist, Calvary Episcopal, and the Tabernacle of Praise Churches and other anonymous donors contributed their time, food, and misc. items during the week.
On behalf of the Executive Committee, thank you to our volunteers and our area churches, civic groups, local merchants, and families for all you do to feed our community helping to reduce food insecurity. We thank you and appreciate your food and monetary donations.
News from The Lord’s Acre, Fletcher
THURSDAY EVENING IN THE GARDEN – JOIN US!
Join us at 6:30pm in the LAF garden for an hour or so of relatively light end-of-summer work: harvesting of a few tomatoes and some peppers, weeding among the collards (we will NOT let the weeds win!), and covering the newer collard planting with insect barrier. It may not seem like a lot, but your presence certainly makes the work go quicker. And we just like seeing you!
A WORD ABOUT COLLARDS
Yes, we grow a lot of collars in the Lord's Acre, Fletcher garden. Why? Collards are often rated the most nutritious vegetable. They are easy to grow and produce over a long period of time. They are a favorite among pantry clients. And the LAF garden is the pantry's only source of fresh collards.
I typically ask youth groups who come to work in the garden, and who often grew up some place other than the deep South, if they have eaten collards. Fewer than half are familiar with them. And fewer than half of those like them.
Collards come from the eastern Mediterranean and were likely first introduced to this continent by enslaved Africans. Collards were among the very few vegetables that slaveholders allowed enslaved people to grow for their own use. Their use spread to poor whites after the Civil War.
Now they are firmly established in Southern cuisine. You're a real Southerner if you know about "pot likker", the liquid remaining after a long slow cook of collard greens. It's the connoisseur's cornbread dip.
CHRIST SCHOOL AGAIN FOR THE WIN
For two Saturday mornings in a row, Christ School students have descended on the garden for a valuable session of weeding. Young men from Christ School have supported the Lord's Acre, Fletcher garden from its beginning, starting with "harvesting" over three tons of rocks when the garden was first tilled. They continue to volunteer for whatever is needed, but this time of year, we couldn't keep up with the weeds without them. Thank You!
A PRAYER FOR LATE SUMMER
We give thanks, O God, for the unexpected boldness of late summer. When the sun shines too bright and the heat burns too long, we retreat to our climate-controlled spaces. We return to our desks for work and for school in the hopes that we might control our destinies and secure our futures. Yet, late summer is a riot of new life despite our fears that every tender, living thing would fly north or turn brown.
Therefore, we pray today for the beloved ones of creation who are passing away and deserve the honor of our tears, the people who are struggling and need the healing of our compassion, those places who need our labor to harvest new life and to till a fertile field to plant seeds of peace.
With the seeds of faith we have and the desire to plant more until the Realm of God is here as it is in heaven, we pray. Amen.
--Adapted from Rev. Elizabeth Waltemath
