By Jon Roberts – Denver, Colorado … Thirty-one thousand pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables were distributed July 16 to the Denver community in a multi-church effort.
LifeSource Adventist Fellowship, in partnership with World Vision, was able to provide free produce to their neighbors. As word began to spread throughout the neighborhood of the free giveaway, a long line of cars formed before 10 a.m. when the distribution began. Volunteers gathered names and email addresses of community members to keep them informed of future hand-outs, and every individual could choose as many 20-pound boxes as they wanted.
Area churches were also given the opportunity to pick up as much food as they wanted to take back to their home church to distribute among their members and their local community.
Also partnering with LifeSource was True Life Community Church, which recently moved to the LifeSource campus.
“We want to work together. We want to give back to our community. It’s all about these people coming through [for those in need],” David Nicodemus, True Life church member commented.
“We’ve seen a lot of people coming through where it is the last bolt holding that car together. You know there is a very serious need when we tell them it is free, but they can take as much as they want to give to their neighbors, and people get really excited,” he added.
The containers included bags of potatoes, oranges, apples, onions, grapes, peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes. The gratefulness of the community for this service was evidenced by their smiles and many thank-yous as their vehicles were loaded by fifteen volunteers from LifeSource and True Life. Members of the community even volunteered to help make the distribution go smoothly.
“It is a huge blessing to help out and give to the community, and it is a great way to get to know your fellow church members. It builds community strength. We’re stronger together,” Jennifer Biddulph, LifeSource member commented.
“We got to live out portions of Scripture, and I am encouraged, challenged, and hopeful for our future as a church as we continue to stand in the gap for our community through the service that was modeled to us by Jesus Christ,” Seth Day, associate pastor of LifeSource stated.
The pallets of food were donated to LifeSource and they will continue to pass out cases of produce every Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at their Denver location through August. If your church is interested in reserving cases to give to your community members, please contact Seth Day at [email protected].
–-Jon Roberts is communication/media assistant for RMC; photos by Jon Roberts
