Donna, who is homeless, attends Gloria Dei Lutheran Church regularly and volunteers in the food pantry, helping pack food bags for hundreds of hungry families served twice a week.
After eating at the "Feed the Hungry" Saturday at St. Paul Lutheran Church NE, two volunteers were able to convince a small group of those who attended to pose for a picture. It is often difficult to get people who have come off the streets for a free meal to agree to be photographed.
Popular Mechanics Magazine ran this photo of Katrina flooding August 2005 at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church — after about 2 feet of water had gone down. All six church buildings in the NOLA 4H grant experienced similar flooding. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a1962/4219861/
LWML members at Mount Zion Lutheran Church prepare hot food for the "Feed the Hungry" Saturdays at the inner city church. Volunteers fix over 200 plates of food for the homeless, seniors and poor families and often send food bags home with the hungry.
Rev. Jerome Terry started making boxes with needed items for homeless men and women on his own, and handing them out whenever he saw homeless during the day. When his congregation found out, they wanted to help. They began filling 100 boxes a month, and taking them to homeless shelters and sharing them on the streets. Each box includes snack foods, socks, bus tokens, Scripture, soap, washcloth, weather-related items (hats, gloves), pocket change. Other items are added and changed out each month.
A partnership between the six churches and Camp Restore, a Lutheran outreach organization in New Orleans, means that college students from around the country volunteer in church summer programs. They provide positive interaction for children, like this 9-year-old, Denim, and they also learn about the inner city. Volunteer Grace Riddle wrote about her experience, the Christ-centered focus of the summer camp, and the struggles for children who live in poverty. She said, "I've been so privileged in my life. I don't have really any life experiences that I could relate to Denim's other than just being a kid. Because when it comes down to it, everyone at that summer program is just a kid. And even though they can be difficult to wrangle sometimes, they are good people who, because of their circumstances, might not get to have the bright futures they deserve."
Mount Zion Lutheran Church, as all the other churches, makes sure that the community knows that they are being fed with good food, and their hunger is abated, and that they also provide spiritual food, to eternal life. Jesus said: "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14-15
