Together We Can Do More

Yesterday I attended an organizational meeting for Feed the Bay. I'm really excited for Spirit FM to be a part of this project again this year. Feed the Bay is an inter-denominational outreach project for churches in Hillsborough County designed to stock the shelves of area food banks. It all started at one church back in 2007 then expanded to include several churches in eastern Hillsborough and now, the goal is to involve the entire county.

The long and short of it is that on September 27th, each participating church will send their members out with a grocery list to local Publix and Sweetbay stores between 8am and 2pm. The stores provide trucks (pretty cool) which get loaded up and the food gets delivered to the banks on that same day. It's a huge undertaking, but great things come of it. Here are last year's stats: 22 churches were involved. About 20,000 people shopped. 823 people volunteered as sorters at the grocery stores or the 12 food banks. 270,000 pounds of food were donated.

Another really uniting part about Feed the Bay is that the participating churches can order t-shirts for their members to wear that day. Now imagine this: 20,000 shoppers all in Feed the Bay t's, all visiting Publix and Sweetbay stores in one concentrated area, all within a 6 hour period. Volunteers will be outside the stores in their shirts, loading up the trucks. It's even in the plans for the Publix employees to wear a Feed the Bay t-shirt that day as well. I don't know about you, but I imagine it will be quite a sight.

I encourage you, if you're in Hillsborough County, especially the eastern part, to ask your priest or pastor if your church is signed up for Feed the Bay. The deadline to sign up and be listed on the t-shirt as a participating church is August 1st. That's also the deadline to order the shirts for your congregation to wear while they shop, so it's time to get a move on! I want to see all denominations on that shirt: Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal... Along with feeding the hungry, Feed the Bay can make a huge impact by sending a message to non-believers that we as Christians are united and we have something that is worth being a part of. Get all the details and check to see if your church is signed up at http://www.feedthebay.org/.

- Abby