A story in the Wooster, Ohio, Weekly News, reports on the effort of Grace Church, a Grace Brethren congregation in Wooster (Bob Fetterhoff, senior pastor), to gather 350,000 pounds of food in order to provide one million meals for needy residents of Wayne County, the community in which they are located. A portion of the story appears below. Click here to read the complete article.
Working together to serve others
Jesus once said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me.”
That is exactly what Grace Church in Wooster is trying to do with a new project aptly called #forwaynecounty. Rachel Snyder, communications director at Grace, is assisting in spearheading the #forwaynecounty venture in which the church is coming alongside local organizations in a collaborative effort to meet the needs of Wayne County. “We want to be a place where the community knows we are there for them,” she said. “Hopefully, it becomes an unstoppable movement.”
About a year ago one, of the team members at Grace came up with an idea: To celebrate its 75th anniversary, they decided not to have a grandiose party but called local newspapers, for-profit and nonprofit organizations to see where the needs were in Wayne County. They were able to organize about 75 unique service projects to fulfill those needs. They did everything from landscaping, sorting cans or whatever was needed utilizing all the small groups at Grace.
Little did the church know that this was a grassroots movement in its infancy, waiting to grow into something more.
When Grace began this small project, members began to see how vast the needs really were in Wayne County. “The (Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank) states that one in five people are food insecure, which basically means they have no idea where their next meal is coming from, and two in five children are food insecure,” Snyder said.
This is where the #forwaynecounty movement comes in.
At the Wayne County Fair, “Grace Church is hoping to collect 350,000 pounds of food in order to participate with local organizations in distribution of this food,” Snyder said. “This amount of food would provide one million meals.”
Click here to read the complete article.