Food for Thought

Food for Thought invites individuals, congregations, clubs, and/or businesses to provide needed weekend nutrition for some of the thousands of food insecure public school students in Baltimore County.

This is such an important ministry since food insecurity is shockingly prevalent in Baltimore County. Students may receive free or reduced breakfast and lunch at school, but often go hungry at home on the weekends. Through the generous support of the congregation at Holy Comforter, we are able to provide 12 children at Pot Spring and 10 children at Padonia Elementary Schools food every weekend. They receive a backpack filled with food for 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 2 dinners plus snacks. In months with 5 weeks and over vacation breaks, we provide gift cards to grocery stores.If you weren’t part of Food for Thought last year, but would like to participate, we would greatly appreciate the support. There are several ways you can provide support:

1. Donate food items on a monthly basis. You can sign up to donate on Sign-Up Genius.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0C4CA5A82CAA8-food1
2. Make a monetary donation. Due to shelf life, and cost and weight issues, some items are purchased by the Food for Thought team. It costs roughly $10 to fill a backpack for 1 child, so consider sponsoring a child for a week, a month or more.
3. Volunteer to assist in the set up/packing near the end of each month. Dates will be published.

Drivers deliver the backpacks to the schools every Thursday and have been scheduled for the year. We are, however, always looking for substitute drivers if you would be interested in volunteering as a back up to take the backpacks to Pot Spring and Padonia Elementary Schools.

Watch the announcements for our monthly packing days. Food is set up in the parish hall after the 8 o’clock service and then packed into the bags after the 10 o’clock service. We welcome all to assist with either/both processes.

If you aren’t part of the monthly Food for Thought ministry, please remember that we are always in need of monetary donations to fill food gaps that sometimes occur and cans of soup, stew, chili, or pasta meals (Chef Boyardee) that you might find on sale.

If you have any questions, you can ask Nancy Peper, Hunter Hanley or Beth Avil or call the church office at 410-252-2711. Thank you for your continued support of this vital ministry!