Hunger Awareness Month: Bags of Hope

Submitted by Jennifer Power

Last week, I shared several suggestions on How to Not Spoil Your Kids. None of us set out to raise kids who are selfish and unaware of the pain of others, but if we are not intentional, it can be easy to fall into bad habits which can cause children to grow up feeling entitled.

I would like to share a specific way your family can sacrifice wants to provide for another’s needs while helping your children be aware of the suffering of others and be a blessing to children in need, but first I want to share a story.

The Bags of Hope Story

Decatur Kids Bags of Hope began at the beginning of 2015 as a service project of a small group here at St. Paul’s. This faith-filled group began to dream a dream of meeting tangible needs of every child in the Decatur school district who experiences hunger on a regular basis. As Michelle (a member of the group) called schools within the Decatur Public School district, the critical nature of the needs quickly became apparent. Knowing their small group could not help each hurting child but desiring to do something they decided to provide weekend food bags to twenty children at one specific school each weekend for the remainder of the school year. As a group, they were able to accomplish this goal. Their project became known as Bags of Hope.

In 2015, the Bags of Hope team was blessed to serve 20 kids with weekend food bags, but their dream to help every hungry child in Decatur continues. They believe with the help of God, His people and the right strategy, Bags of Hope can accomplish this mission. This school year, with the help of monetary and food donations from the congregation and community, they have committed to serve 60 kids. Three different Decatur schools have identified 20 children at the highest risk for hunger insecurity, and these 60 kids will receive food bags all year long.

The Need

We often think of hunger as affecting those in developing countries and can forget there is hunger insecurity in our own backyard. Children who are regularly hungry and do not often know the source of their next meal struggle significantly with school performance and social skills. Such children become victims of a vicious cycle they are often powerless to break. The statistics on children in need in the Decatur school district are staggering.

Michelle gathered data by calling all schools in the district and discovered all the Decatur Public Schools have a higher than 80 percent rate of kids on the free/reduced meal program (with the exception of the Magnet schools which are at about 60 percent). Many schools are over 90 percent, and some are nearly 100 percent. As she called these schools, many were desperate to get added to the Bags of Hope program.

If you know teachers in the Decatur School District, I challenge you to talk with them about how so many of the kids feel about weekends and summer. I am confident (because I have experienced it first-hand with my work at Boys Town and have heard from a number of teachers and school workers here in town) you will hear what I and many others have heard: unlike children who are food-secure, hungry children dread the weekends and summer because they do not know if/when they will be able to eat.

Regardless of the appropriate or inappropriate nature of the decisions of their care-takers, hungry children are always victims, and those of us with plenty have a biblical obligation to support children who cannot help or advocate for themselves. It is our calling as Disciples of Jesus to be bold and courageous. We must regularly attempt projects which are impossible without God and pray prayers so daring they make our enemy shake with fear.

An Opportunity to Respond

September is Hunger Awareness Month, and even though the month is just about over, I would like to challenge families to consider making a sacrifice in order to sponsor a child for a whole school year of weekend food bags.

It costs less than $2.50 to fill a weekend food bag (for a total of $100 per child for a school year). I would like to challenge you to look carefully at the groceries you purchase each week and determine as a family one or two items you might be able to go without each week in order to sponsor a child through Bags of Hope. Perhaps you could try “meatless Mondays” or eliminate purchases of soda or chips or some other item which is not essential to the health of your family.

Many of you are probably able to simply spend $100 to sponsor a child, but even if this is the case, I would encourage you to use this as a teaching opportunity and not simply make a donation and forget about it. For example, let’s say you decide not to eat meat on Mondays. Perhaps when you sit down to dinner on Monday evenings, you as a family could say a prayer for the child who is receiving a bag of food that week because of your sacrifice. This would be a great way to help your children be aware of the sufferings of others and actively experience a way to sacrifice something they want for something another child needs.

Lately, I have been giving much serious consideration to the matter of radical sacrificial giving. I recently heard Francis Chan say, in response to people’s concern he and his wife would give away everything to those in need and have nothing left for themselves (and I am paraphrasing) “even if God were to allow that to happen – to let us go hungry to the point we starve and die due to our giving – what better way to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?”

I have not been able to shake this image from my mind. To be like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel 3) and live in such a way in which we trust God to provide for us while boldly stating that even if He does not rescue us, we will serve Him.

There is really no other way to live.

I have been praying that within this generation and within this city God would raise up followers eager and willing to give it all – to live in such Holy obedience the only question is “what is God asking of me?” – believing He will give us the ability to do whatever He asks, and to have no concern for our own wants or well-being because we trust so fully in Him. I know I have a long way to go, but I pray I might be among such a people, and I pray God will teach my husband and me how to raise our children to be among such people.

Today I offer one suggestion to help your children be such people of faith. Perhaps you will utilize this suggestion or maybe you will use a different approach, but I pray we will all become more intentional about helping our family and our children become nothing short of a small and mighty band of warriors who lay down our own desires for the good of the Kingdom of God.

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Instructions for Giving to Bags of Hope

If you would like to sponsor a child through Bags of Hope, you can give to St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and write “Bags of Hope” in the memo of the check and/or mark “Bags of Hope” on the offering envelope. You can also give online by typing “Bags of Hope” in the box marked “Special Instructions.” If you decide to give in this way, I hope you will use this as an opportunity to help your family grow by connecting your sacrifice to blessing others.

You can also stay up to date on Bags of Hope by liking the Facebook page. To avoid missing important updates, you can choose to receive notifications or change your news feed option to “see first.”

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Scripture

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. –James 2:14-18

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in – Matthew 25:35

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. – 1 John 3:17-18

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.
– Proverbs 19:17

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