How Do You Spell R-E-L-I-E-F?

   The Episcopal Anti-Hunger Network is now the Episcopal Hunger Relief Network. The Network will serve more than 550,000 meals this year in the metropolitan area through the Kansas City Community Kitchen, parish food pantries, and hot food programs like Breakfast at St. Paul’s and Meals on Wheels.

     The Network’s accomplishments and the success of the Kansas City Community Kitchen recently led the Episcopal Community Services (ECS) board to refocus the organization’s programming. ECS now dedicates its efforts solely on feeding the hungry.

    That refocus is a direct response to community needs. Studies show an increasing number of hungry people and households that are “food insecure.” Parish pantries are meeting that need through donations of cash and food, and volunteers continue to distribute groceries at more than a dozen pantries on both sides of the state line.

     The Kansas City Community Kitchen continues to serve between 400 and 600 meals each weekday. Want to make a financial contribution to our Hunger Relief efforts? Just go to the Episcopal Community Services website, and click on the "Donations" button at the top of the page.

     Contact Deacon Allen Ohlstein if you’d like to volunteer.

 

     If your parish is doing something to feed the hungry and we don't know about, please contact us!

Become a Driving Force in Feeding the Hungry

     One of Episcopal Community Services’ oldest feeding programs continues to thrive and your parish can become a part of it. Meals on Wheels provides sustenance to shut-ins every weekday.

     Your parish, or perhaps a group within your parish, can “adopt a day” (or more if you like!) each month. Each Meals on Wheels driver picks up hot lunches at the Kansas City Community Kitchen and delivers them to about a dozen of our clients in Midtown.

     Individuals can volunteer on their own or in pairs. You can drive one or more days a month, or even serve as a “stand by” driver to fill in at the last minute when the scheduled driver can’t make it.

     Click here to email Peggy Salts or call her at (913) 897-4798.

Whole-Hearted Thanks to Whole Foods

     Each day at 12 Noon, when the doors open to the Kansas City Community Kitchen, there is  something on the table from Whole Foods Market.

     Early in the morning, six days a week, our driver, Sonny, makes his way to Whole Foods at 91^st & Metcalf, where our van is stuffed to the gills with high-quality food items for the Kansas City Community Kitchen.

     Whole Foods donates several thousand pounds of fruit, vegetables and dry goods to the Community Kitchen every week.  Because of their dedication to feeding the hungry, we are able to provide fresh, delicious and nutritious food to our guests—food they otherwise would not have.

     From the staff, volunteers and guests of the Kansas City Community Kitchen, we offer a sincere and profound thanks to our brothers and sisters at Whole Foods Market. Tell them “thank you” yourself next time you’re in the store!

    

Planting Partnerships

     Remember the adage? "Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he eats forever." The same goes for food that grows in the ground.

     ECS recently entered in a partnership with Kansas City Community Gardens, a local not-for-profit organization that has helped turn backyards, vacant lots, and unused land into productive gardens since 1979. 

     KC Community Gardens helps people of all ages and abilities plant and grow their own gardens – at their homes, in group gardens, and in plots throughout the Kansas City area. Membership includes some of Kansas City’s expert urban gardeners, beginning gardeners, and gardeners in between. 

     For more information, contact the KC Community Gardens at (816) 931-3877 or visit their web site http://www.kccg.org/.

 

Case Worker Enhances Culinary Cornerstones Program

     A social worker has joined the Culinary Cornerstones chef training program. Janie Helm will work with students on developing life skills to enhance their hands-on education at the Community Kitchen. Janie also will be involved in case management and in recruiting potential students for the 12-week program. Ideal candidates are highly motivated to change their standard of living. Most are unemployed or underemployed and have been hampered by disability or other challenges. Janie can be reached by email, or at 816-474-6524.

     Culinary Cornerstones is a nationally  recognized program that addresses the root causes of poverty by providing individuals with marketable job skills so they can find work in the food service industry. Graduates are working in kitchens at Sprint and restaurants in the Power & Light District. For more information on Culinary Cornerstones, contact Chef Jessica Bero.

 

UTO Awards Grant to St. Paul’s Pantry

     The food pantry at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Kansas, has received a $12,500 grant from the United Thank Offering of the Episcopal Church USA. St. Paul’s will use the funds for a new, commercial refrigerator and freezer, shelving for storage and distribution of food, a conveyer system to help load food into the pantry, and a computer to automate pantry records.

The United Thank Offering (UTO) was founded by women in the Episcopal Church in 1889. Through UTO, women in the church encourage giving based on gratitude; they collect funds through an annual offering at the parish level and choose where to distribute funds to projects that “alleviate profound human suffering.”

     Click here for more information on the pantries of the Episcopal Hunger Relief Effort.

Mmm, Mmm Good!

     Legend has it that centuries ago a soldier was returning home from war, hungry and tired.  He stopped in a town and went door-to-door asking for food. At each house, he was turned down. It was a very, very poor town and folks weren't willing to share from the little that they had. But the soldier had an idea...

     He borrowed a large pot from one family, placed a big stone inside and filled the pot with water. The soldier sat in the middle of town with the pot atop a fire, smiled and exclaimed how delicious this “stone soup” was going to be.

     “It would be even better with some carrots,” said the soldier.

     Someone brought a few carrots. 

     “This soup would be even better with some beans,” he said.

     Once again, a townsperson contributed some of his scarce food. More vegetables followed, and before long the soldier had a wonderfully aromatic and delicious soup--enough for everyone in the town, and the Stone Soup parable was born.

     Stone Soup is shared today among people from some local parishes. Folks from St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Michael & All Angels and St. Paul’s (Kansas City, Kansas) began meeting early last year to rejuvenate the Episcopal Pantry at St. Paul’s. Since then, they have gathered quarterly to make their own Stone Soup, literally and figuratively. Over dinner, the members of the group share ideas and successes from their outreach programs. The group has grown from the original three parish teams to nine parishes in the Diocese of Kansas and guests from Victory Hills Church of the Nazarene.

     For more information, email Deacon Allen Ohlstein or call him at 913-240-1490. Bon Appetit!

 

The Most Important Meal of the Day

     Congratulations to Breakfast at St. Paul's, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last week. Breakfast at St. Paul's is one of the feeding programs of the Episcopal Hunger Relief Network.

     The Saturday morning breakfast program, a ministry of St. Paul's in Kansas City, Kansas, and St. Michael & All Angels, has served hot, hearty breakfasts to families in need for 521 straight Saturdays. That's a lot of bacon and eggs!