This fall we focused four successive RE sessions
for the All Ages class on food and hunger issues, making soup and bright
posters to raise awareness about the NDG Food Depot. By
Thanksgiving my small RE unit came to its third and climactic Sunday of going
to visit the local food bank, a fifteen minute walk away from church. It was a good day in many ways: lots of frozen soup that we had made to
take; our laminated posters and recycled egg boxes to share; plenty of children
(12, some of whom were visitors, plus one baby and one teen) and five adults
(one youth advisor, three parents, of whom one is the RE chair, and myself).
I think the "MIT" was that the children (and
adults, too) got a chance to see inside the Food Depot, that we went together
to learn and to share what we had brought.
It meant we got a visceral sense that the huge 40 kg sack of rice the
children bagged into small 2 cup portions, was not actually going to feed many
people for very long.
One mum came up to me, back
at church where we ate our own "stone" soup, to underline how much
her daughter was loving this unit of RE.
Sunny, the daughter, had in fact made three beautiful posters to contribute. On our fourth food issues Sunday, Mathias
told the follow-up class he thought it was a long way to walk, but “once we got
there, it was fun to pack the rice, and the people there were so appreciative
of everything we did!”
Two years ago, after attending my
professional conference in New Orleans, I came home longing to find ways to do
more hand-on service work, and since then I have been volunteering with a NDP
Food Depot and Seniors’ Council program for "Boomers" and building
relationships with Depot staff. I hope this R.E. project is just one of
many we can do to help our neighborhood take care of the hungry, while teaching
our children about sharing resources and social justice issues.
