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Sonny Pinckard, Executive Director, Harvest of Hope      

      I hope you enjoyed the turkey or ham that you had for Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey or pig was blessed all year but had to make the supreme sacrifice so that it could grace your Thanksgiving table. I hope that you remembered to say “thank you” not only for all the food that graced your table, but for all the blessings you have received all year long. Sometimes we have been blessed with the good things of life for so long that we have the tendency to overlook our blessings.

At Harvest of Hope Food Pantry, we celebrated our 9^th Thanksgiving distribution and are looking forward to our 9^th Christmas distribution.  I want to thank each of you who have made donations of any kind this year or in the past years because you are the reason we are still here. I want you to know that the food pantry is your ministry. In essence, we work for you. If it were not for you, we would not be able to operate. Because of your support we are able to meet the needs of many people in Sumter County.

All of our volunteers are the hands and feet of this ministry.  In fact, we have two volunteers who have worked with us since day one in June of 2013: Debra and Kathryn. They work Mondays as we prepare the food for distribution, and they work Tuesdays as we distribute the food. What a blessing they are.

We have a number of volunteers who are faithful to work whenever they can and a volunteer chairperson who reminds all the volunteers of times that we need workers.  By the way, we are always open for new volunteers. Why don’t you give it a try? I can tell you that there is nothing exciting about packing and distributing food. At times, it is hard. The work is much the same day after day. People who work at the food pantry for the first time say there is more to do to get ready for the distribution of food than they ever dreamed.

During the year we pack food every Monday and distribute food on Tuesday. In a month that has five Tuesdays, we have a week off (a vacation).

However, December distributions are different in that we try to distribute food in two days as close to Christmas as possible. This year’s schedule is as follows:

Monday, December 20^th –         pack for as long as we have space.

Tuesday, December 21^st –          8:30   –  11:00       for 1^st Tuesday

1:30   –    4:00       for 2^nd Tuesday

Wednesday, December 22^nd      8:30  –   11:00       for 3^rd Tuesday

1:30   –    4:00       for 4^th Tuesday

We are blessed to be able to provide more food at Christmas because of the number of churches that partner with us. We invite you to come and work any or all of the above days.  If you have donated to this ongoing ministry, you are welcome to come by and see what your donations continue to accomplish.

I want to thank the schools who helped with this ministry through their food drives: Sumter County Primary School, Sumter County Intermediate School, Sumter County Elementary School, and Sumter County High School.

Also, a thanks to Ameris Bank in Ellaville who collected 1800 items. Thank you for your help. Thanks also to Food Lion and Harveys in Americus for blessing us all year long.

I have talked about food drives: large donations, but I want everyone to know that every single can makes a difference.

Beginning in January we will go back to our interviewing of our clients using the USDA guidelines.

As you receive this newsletter, Christmas is fast coming upon us. Why not make a donation in memory of or in honor of someone and experience the joy of giving without expecting anything in return but the joy of giving.

Thank you for all you do to support Harvest of Hope Food Pantry. But more important: PRAY FOR US.

 

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

God bless each of you.