Editor, Smithfield Times

The webpage of the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore (foodbankonline.org) says it all — Together We Can Solve Hunger. And we can if we put our minds to it! According to the 2013 statistics, Isle of Wight County has an estimated 4,000 individuals (11.3 percent of the population) who are food insecure, and 1,290 of those (16 percent) are children. Think of it.  Don’t you want to help? The Christian Outreach Program (COP) is the distribution point in our community and it is an arm of the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore, but it also relies on the donations of each one of us. We can do it individually, but we can also do it collectively through our churches, our civic groups and any place we gather. Can’t we all, regularly, share a food item from our pantry?

Trinity United Methodist Church has a good model for churches to use. We have a program called “Catch the Habit For COP,” and each person is encouraged to bring a food item when coming to church on Sunday. We have baskets at key places, and volunteers who count and then deliver the food items to COP. We have collected 85,037 food items since the beginning of 2007! It is the power of one — one person at a time donating one food item at a time to COP. We believe we are doing this in Christ’s Name. “Lord, when did we see you hungry…?” (Matthew 25:37).

What about you? Do you have a food item to share?

Carolyn Wade Savinsky
Smithfield