Deborah Conner,
Interim Associate Pastor for Outreach
Two weeks ago I attended the White House Conference on Hunger and Nutrition via livestream. This was the first conference held since the Nixon Administration to address issues of hunger in our country. The information I heard may be helpful to us as we continue to feed hungry people in Greensboro and to seek to break cycles of poverty that create food insecurity. Here are five areas of action that the conference addressed:
- Improve food access and affordability making it easier for everyone, no matter where they live, to access and afford food. This includes identifying and eliminating food deserts.
- Integrate nutrition and health by prioritizing the role of nutrition and food insecurity in overall health, including disease prevention and management.
- Empower all consumers to make and have access to healthy choices, increase access to healthy food and encourage healthy workplace and school policies that include incentives to eat good food.
- Make it easier for people to be more physically active
- Enhance nutrition and food security research particularly on issues of equity, access, and disparities.
The big overarching goal is to end hunger by 2030. This is going to take government, business, non-profits and faith communities working together if we are going to make this happen.
Scripture calls us to feed the hungry. We are continuing to do the Lord’s work and fulfill this call, but we also need to work toward breaking the cycles of depravation that create this hunger crisis in the first place. We may disagree about many things in our country but I have yet to find anyone who doesn’t want to make sure hungry children are fed. This gives me hope that we can work together to make changes that will help others. Our partnership with Bread for the World is one way we can advocate for others around issues of hunger.
Hot Dish updates
Building community at Hot Dish.
Hot Dish & Hope continues to serve 300-400 meals a week. Recently, we have started offering our guests the option to eat dinner inside or take out. On average 60-90 people have chosen to come back inside every Tuesday and Thursday.
In December we will be offering dinner and a brief Advent devotional for both We invite you to join us as we fellowship together with a meal and worship. Dinner is served 4:45-6 pm with worship beginning at 6. We hope you will consider coming out for this Advent event.
Finally, one of the men who regularly eats dinner with us offered to start giving haircuts to our guests!
We are grateful for your generosity and support of this ministry. If you want to get involved in Hot Dish, please let me know. Stay tuned for opportunities to help our unhoused and working poor guests this winter.
With gratitude,
Deborah
