The Living Diet by Martha Tatarnic

Author:Martha Tatarnic
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Church Publishing Inc.
Published: 2018-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Shopping Weekly for the Food Bank

When you are grocery shopping for your own household tables, pick up a few, or even just one extra item of nonperishable food to give to a food bank. Many grocery stores now provide bins so you can make your donation on the spot. As you are trying to make your own thoughtful and conscientious choices for the food you will eat, allow the regular consideration of the hunger of others and the need in your community to be part of your purchasing practice.

Participating in a Feeding Program

For my first-year field placement at seminary, the internship director suggested that I volunteer at a soup kitchen in the Regent Park area of Toronto. I wasn’t familiar with the various neighborhoods of the city nor the reputation of each, but when I met with my supervisor (a Salvation Army captain), she explained that Regent Park was one of the most challenged parts of the city. “All kinds of social resources are being pumped into this area all the time,” she told me. “But we don’t necessarily see the money doing a lot of good in breaking cycles.” She went on to tell me that her expectation of me at the soup kitchen wasn’t that I would make food. “What we find makes a difference in people’s lives, in helping to break cycles of poverty and addiction, is relationship. You’re not here to make food. You’re here to get to know people.” I subsequently went in each Friday morning. As promised, the culinary expectations were minimal. We served hot coffee and leftover donated doughnuts and muffins. I was in the kitchen to assemble the supplies and turn the coffee on. Then I spent the morning drinking coffee with the guests.

I was intimidated at first. I was suddenly aware of the privilege I had enjoyed, and taken for granted, all of my life. My parents not only made sure that I was fed and clothed and educated, they also made it possible for me to take a variety of music lessons and go on band trips. I worried about what kind of clothes I would wear, not whether I would have clothes. I fretted about offending my parents by not liking the food they had made. I never wondered if there would be food on the table. I went to bed at night hoping that I had aced my math test, all the while assuming that a world of opportunity lay before me. I dabbled in alcohol and tried to make decisions around friends and social occasions with some integrity and sense of responsibility; substance abuse was not an escape from the cultural and economic patterns that left me feeling hopeless. I had no experience with the kind of need that this group knew and lived.

It didn’t matter. We talked about our families and the weather. We talked politics and religion and current events. They told me amazing stories of conversion and faith. We told jokes. I prayed for them and they prayed for me.

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