As we approach the first anniversary of the original stay-at-home order, the emerging story is one that the church has known all along. More profound than our human differences are God-given commonalities, like the need for food, water, shelter – and hope. COVID-19 has lingered long past what most imagined. With the shutdown of local businesses devastating communities nationwide, the number of people seeking food assistance has increased by 55% in less than a year.
CityServe’s partnership with the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program has impacted the “Last Mile of Need”. A metaphorical term that has typically been defined by those who have unmet food needs, lack transportation, have physical limitations, or have fallen between the cracks of a stressed system. CityServe has reached this group by empowering churches to serve their communities with food and a healthy dose of hope. Yet newly apparent is how food insecurity has stricken households that have never experienced it. Families that have always had the financial means to purchase food are now struggling to fulfill basic needs.
The Broadening Impact of Covid-19: The Newly Hungry (relief)
Before the pandemic, Rosemary Evans, a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church of Bessemer for over 30 years, focused on helping families unable to afford healthcare. As the leader of the congregation’s Health & Temperance ministry, Rosemary planned events such as health fairs and glucose screenings. But these days, the essentials have shifted. As Rosemary says, “Now getting food has become most important. It’s a need for basic survival.”
This shift in the type of need, however, isn’t all that’s changed. In places like Mobile, Alabama, churches are also seeing a growing number of people who have never needed governmental food assistance cue up in their food distribution lines. Travis Johnson, Lead Pastor of Pathway Church, shared how those who have and those who don’t, have come to meet somewhere in the middle – namely his church parking lot. “This season is different,” observed Johnson. “I have seen people in beautiful SUV’s — gorgeous cars — get in that line. I know they’ve never been in a line like that before. They’re in that line and it’s public — people can see them. Even someone’s previous year’s income, that sort of thing, does not reflect their present reality.”
Indeed, our present reality is different than it was even at the outset of the pandemic. Feeding America reports that roughly 4 in 10 people currently utilizing food banks have never done so in the past.
More Than Food: Offering Hope and Compassion
In the book of Acts, the church was said to have not claimed any possessions of their own but to share everything they had (Acts 4:32). With the CityServe distribution model in place, the church network of today is fulfilling that call. Offering all they have to one another with compassion. Though neighbors might show up to a church parking lot for a food box, they are also receiving an offer of prayer and hope beyond the box.
A Lengthening of the “Last Mile of Need”: How Churches Are Adapting to the Ever-Changing Dynamics of Hunger-Relief
By Crissy Sanchez-Cochran
Director of Communications, CityServe