Feed the Hungry
enough for everyoneGiving
Your Generosity Matters
Our Food Rescue, Good Sam Mobile Food Pantry donations and distribution and Food and Love Ministries serve over 200 of our neighbors in need each week.
We celebrate many miraculous milestones in 2023:
Good Sam distributed food to 11,225 of our neighbors!
Over 800 Food and Love volunteers prepared 3683 meals in the course of 3400 hours of preparation and service
If you are in need of food, please drop by our oceanside entrance (nearest the woods – as you pass the church building) on any of the following days and times:
Sundays, from noon- 2 pm (Our Food and Love teams serve a sit-down lunch in our Fellowship Hall from 1-3 pm)
Tuesdays, from 10 am – noon
Thursdays, from 2-4 pm
To join those who are donating food to give to our neighbors, you may drop it off at the bayside entrance (the first one at the sign, before you pass the church building) at any of the above times. To donate money so that we may purchase food for those in need, click on our giving page and designate your gift as a “Good Sam” donation. Thank you.
We post updated shopping lists on our Facebook page.
The Good Samaritan Ministry works in teams with our Food Rescue Ministry to provide approximately 900 bags of groceries to local people in need of food. The Food Rescue folks rescue food from local restaurants and stores that has been pulled from the shelves.
For example, Wawa – Wawa has hot breakfast sandwiches under heat lamps at their registers, the sandwiches stay there for a maximum 120-minutes and then would be thrown away if unsold. Instead, the folks at Wawa place the unsold product into deep freeze (-10°) for our Food Rescue volunteers to come and collect them to be distributed through Our Good Samaritans. In 2019, there were 62,100 food units rescued from the 3 local Wawas, that is and average of 1,200 units/week – WOW! Every one of those food units were distributed to local shelters, community feeding programs and through the Good Samaritan Ministry
Donations…
In addition to Wawa, the fine people at our local Weis and Giant supermarkets, Chipotle, Chick-Fil-A, Surf Bagel and Panera Bread (to name a few) also donate large amounts of food that would be thrown away at the end of each day… almost 211,500 lbs in 2019.
We have had monetary donations from Schell Brothers and Community Bank, plus several anonymous donors. No donation is small, they all add up. Remember, no single snowflake thinks that it is responsible for the snowstorm; but together each snowflake helps to build a snowman.
One of our donors made a school project of collecting food and money. Cooper Nathan, of Redden Ridge printed up a flyer and took it around the neighborhood… a couple of weeks later, Cooper dropped off 457.9 lbs of food and cleaning supplies at Epworth. His efforts were highlighted in the most recent issue of neighborhood newsletter. As found in Les Misérables, Gavroche – the youngest member of the cast sings, “This only goes to show, what little people can do!,” as part of one of his songs. THANK YOU COOPER! You are wise beyond your age.