Every Thursday, a small group of kids meet in the basement of the First United Methodist Church to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the homeless people served by Sister Jean’s Kitchen in Atlantic City. Sister Jean is really something. She had me in tears last week when I delivered the sandwiches to her, as she strongly related how great the need is for help in feeding “her” people. Seven hundred meals a day, five days a week she serves. But there is nothing for them on the weekends – except peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, to go. I left there firmly resolved to do more.
This small group of kids is totally dedicated to making these sandwiches every week. It is something that they can do. Our ten loaves of sandwiches is but a drop in the bucket, though, compared to the need. That does not, however, mean that we should not bother to do what we do. On Thursdays, my dream would be to open the church for people from all over town to come and just make PB and J’s all day. They are needed on Fridays down at SJ’s K, so the homeless folk of AC can have food in their pockets to tide them over the weekend until the kitchen opens again on Monday morning.
The poor, the hungry, and the homeless are the invisible in such an affluent community as ours. We must make ourselves see the need and respond to it in whatever ways we can. The Hammonton Area Ministerium (a group of local ministers working together), is responding by sponsoring a walk for hunger in the month of October. Called “The Crop Walk,” it will be held on October 15 at 2pm, and will be starting from St. Martin’s. We are all able to walk or to sponsor a walker. You can get involved through your local church, or by calling the Hammonton Presbyterian Church to register: 561-0168. A good part of the funds raised from this walk stay in the community to fight hunger here. The more we raise, the more we keep.
Maybe your company could match what is raised, or maybe you could sponsor an entire church to walk. Bless you. We want and need your help. Maybe, though, you are just an individual who sees and cares and wants to help in whatever way you can – like the kids on Thursdays in the church basement. Don’t stay away. Let’s all work together and see what can be done!
See you on October 15!