A Place of Grace in Jackson, MS



Leslie Bingham



The Sunday we were in Jackson, Mississippi, we attended Sunday morning worship services at Galloway United Methodist Church, just a block from the state capitol building. This vibrant and generous congregation of about 2,000 is heavily committed to mission and outreach. So, in addition to an inspiring service led by co-pastors Rev. Dr. Connie Shelton and Rev. Dr. Joey Shelton, a lovely after-church luncheon, and a heavenly evening concert, we were invited to experience their day shelter to feed the homeless in their neighborhood. It’s called Grace Place.

Grace Place was founded 4 years ago. Located right in the church, it is open from 8:30-11:30 a.m. on weekday mornings. It serves a hot meal 4 mornings and “provides a place of rest and respite for those that call the streets their home.” On most mornings, about 70 guests are served. And in 2010, the grand total was 22,000 meals.

We arrived at about 8:00 and Leslie Bingham, Missions and Outreach Director, immediately put us to work setting tables. The kitchen staff (who also cook for other events at the church) and other volunteers and former guests had already been preparing the meal. When the doors opened, each guest signed in, went to the coffee room for a hot beverage, and then gathered in the dining room. Many of the guests chatted with other guests they knew and with the staff and volunteers.

When all were assembled, Leslie welcomed the guests, asked whether any guests were there for the first time (there were about 4), and explained the rules (such as to treat everyone, including the volunteers and staff, with respect). She also introduced us and asked us to say a few words about our project; we were pleased that the group vocalized appreciation. Then one of the guests offered a prayer and serving began, first women, then others table by table.

What a meal they received! – Chicken and rice casserole, green beans with bacon, baked sweet potatoes, and dinner rolls. When it was time for seconds, whatever food was left from the first serving was quickly given out, save for a few green beans and rolls.

What impressed us about Grace Place? As with most feeding programs, much more happens here than feeding. For example:

• Staff help guests with issues such as transportation, clothes for job interviews, physical and mental healthcare, and getting into treatment for addiction. In addition, Galloway has a program they call “Transformation Trail” that provides income and job experience to one or two guests by hiring them as custodians or kitchen workers at the church. 

  

  Kaleb Thomson on the Roof

  
• Grace Place is experimenting with a rooftop garden, currently managed by Kaleb Thomson, a senior social work major from Mississippi College who is doing a practicum at Grace Place.
• One of the volunteers, Mark Wall, has been interviewing guests about their stories and taking professional portraits of them, a rare treat for guests. The pictures we saw posted on the wall at Grace Place, were truly captivating.
• We heard many success stories, guests who had turned their lives around after experiencing the love and support of Grace Place.

Leslie has dreams of one day expanding to a full-fledged facility offering housing and even more services to those in need. But for now, Grace Place is focusing on what they do best – feeding people and providing a place for them to experience the love of Christ.

Mississippi Food Network -- Feeding Hungry Children in Mississippi

In Mississippi, the reported rate of food insecurity in 2009 was 17.1%, higher than the national average of 14.7%. And among Mississippi households with children, especially those headed by single parents, rates were still higher, over 20%. (See the USDA’s report Household Food Security in the United States, 2009.) Food insecurity in children is heartbreaking – it can deny them the nutritious food they need to be healthy, to develop their minds and bodies, to learn in school, and to become productive adults.

Food insecurity is often associated with severe health problems, particularly obesity. According to the Centers for Disease control, the rate of obesity in Mississippi in 2009 was the worst of any state, 34.4%, compared to the national average of 26.7%.


Cassandra Guess with OrganWise Guy



The Mississippi Food Network, located in Jackson, MS, is the Feeding America food bank serving most of the state. In the last few years, it has been increasing its role in combatting hunger and obesity in Mississippi. We interviewed Cassandra Guess, Programs Director, about the creative programs she runs focusing on nutrition education and children.


CLUB Nutrition

Cassandra oversees the CLUB Nutrition program (Children Learning and Understanding Better Nutrition), which aims to teach kids about what they can do to keep their bodies strong and healthy. They use materials from the OrganWise Guys program, including a doll that has removable, cartoon-character body parts to talk about the roles of different foods in keeping bodies strong and healthy – enter Calci M. Bones, Madame Muscle, Hardy Heart, and many others.

Kids Café
In 2007, with a grant from Uncle Ben’s, and in 2008, with a grant from the Lincy Foundation, the Mississippi Food Network began feeding children at six Mississippi Boys and Girls Clubs. Once the initial grants expired, Cassandra couldn’t bear to tell the kids that they would no longer receive food, so she continued the programs by providing snacks through the USDA CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program), which reimburses $0.74 for each nutritious snack served.  Currently, the Mississippi Food Network is supplying after-school snacks to 12 sites serving over 800 children.

Many programs would like to feed children a full meal after school or in the summer, but this is much harder, partly because many sites for children don’t have kitchen facilities. They can serve pre-packaged food, transport food to their site from a separate kitchen, or transport the kids to a location that prepares meals. Here, too, the Mississippi Food Network helps by providing food, helping to work out the logistics, and handling the details of CACFP.


BackPack Food



BackPack Program

When kids live in extreme poverty, they often have little access to nutritious food outside of school breakfast and school lunch programs. To help feed them on weekends, many food banks and other organizations provide needy children with child-friendly food to take home on the weekends. The Feeding America program is called the “BackPack Program.”


The Mississippi Food Network began its BackPack Program in 2008 by supplying packages of food to programs for children such as after-school programs, day shelters for homeless people, and Boys & Girls Clubs. In addition, some churches have funded the BackPack program for schools in their neighborhoods. The sites identify which children need weekend food, and the Food Network purchases the food using grant money and other donations. Currently, they’re supplying BackPack food to 9 sites and over 300 kids each week.

Food for the BackPack program is relatively expensive (about $3.65 per package) because, in addition to being nutritious and requiring no refrigeration, it must be easy for children to open and eat by themselves, with little or no preparation. The Mississippi Food Network purchases the packages of food they distribute from the Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee.  Each zip-loc bag contains 2 bowls of cereal, 1 cup of shelf-stable milk, 2 juice boxes, 2 fruit cups, and 2 entrees such as beef lasagna or chili, all packaged as individual servings.

Robrelle Murray

To get a first-hand experience with the BackPack program, we visited Operation: U.P.W.A.R.D. and met with Executive Director and founder Robrelle Murray.

A few years ago Robrelle started this program for kids who live in an extremely low-income neighborhood in Jackson. She said she got tired of other "Christians" complaining about the kids hanging around in this neighborhood where she grew up, but not helping because they were afraid to go there. So she started with a blanket on the lawn in a park, where she taught Bible lessons, played games, did craft projects, and gave food to kids who came. The program has now grown (with nearly no funding) to serving about 250 kids after school and on Monday evenings in its own building, which also houses a day care center for preschoolers. 

Robrelle described how the various government assistance programs that are meant to help people actually can trap them in poverty. For example, each dollar a person earns at a job means their benefits (food stamps, rent subsidies, etc.) are cut, but their expenses (child care, transportation, etc.) rise way more than they can then afford, making them worse off than they were before getting a job. People then can’t pay their rent, which forces them onto the streets or into even more substandard housing, and often forces their children to change schools over and over again. Robrelle tries to be the stable and loving presence in these children’s lives.

In addition to providing a snack to kids after school, Robrelle participates in the BackPack Program. Each Friday, she picks up the packages from the Mississippi Food Network and adds them to the back packs of the kids at Operation: U.P.W.A.R.D. The Friday we helped, 47 children received BackPack packages for them to eat on the weekend. The smiles were infectious, and many had to be reminded not to open them right now.

Beth-El Farmworker Ministry

According to the USDA, in 2006 there were approximately 1 million hired farmworkers in the U.S.  Some work with livestock, some are migrant (traveling to work where crops are ripe), and some are seasonal (working only when the crops in their home location need tending). Farmworkers are “among the most economically disadvantaged working groups in the U.S.” and “poverty among farmworkers is more than double that of all wage and salary employees.” (USDA Profile of Hired Farmworkers, 2008, pages 1 and iv.)

What an irony that those who povide food for America's tables are so often hungry themselves. To learn about hunger among farmworkers, we visited Beth-El Farmworker Ministry, Inc., in Wimauma, Florida, just south of Tampa. Beth-El is a Presbyterian mission, founded in 1976. It also has locations in Immokalee, Arcadia, and Fort Meade.

Javier Izaguirre
Beth-El Operations Manager

Our visit to Beth-El was hosted by Javier Izaguirre, once a farmworker himself, and now Operations Manager ensuring that all the programs at Beth-El run smoothly. Javier told us his story, and through him we learned of the many hardships faced by farmworkers, hardships such as:

• Working very long hours in conditions that are often extremely hot, pesticide laden, physically taxing, and dangerous
• Very low and uncertain wages, typically based on number of items picked
• No health or dental care, limited or no workmen’s compensation, no paid vacation or sick leave
• Discrimination, leading to limited advancement opportunities
• Stress on families due to frequent moving or absence of a parent
• Interrupted schooling for children
• Substandard and crowded housing
• Risk of wage theft
• Reports of modern-day slavery

And for those farmworkers who are undocumented, the situation is much worse.  They live in fear of jail and deportation, they pay taxes such as Social Security that they can never recover, and many services available to other people living in poverty are unavailable to them. 

Cosmetology Class

Beth-El’s mission is to “help farm workers achieve self-sufficiency through its open opportunities to worship, its extensive educational programs, and the many services it provides to meet basic needs.” Its programs include 

• Spanish-language worship services, Bible study, and vacation Bible school
• A wide variety of adult education classes, such as English as a Second Language, General Educational Development degree (GED), Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), and Cosmetology
• Pro-bono legal services
• Caseworkers to help with housing 
• Programs for children such as back to school preparation, field trips, and summer camp
• Mission groups who work at the Mission or help restore housing
• Addiction recovery programs such as AA
• Food distribution

Also housed on the campus are Head Start program for children of migrant workers and a charter school for at-risk children operated by Redlands Christian Migrant Association. 

Bagging

On Tuesdays from 9:00 to 2:00, Beth-El gives out food to those in the area that need it. Food is government surplus food (FEMA, TEFAP) obtained through the Cahill Food Bank, supplemented by other donations.

The day we helped, we arrived at 8:30. About 20 people were already in line.  Many volunteers were in the “bag room,” where large racks held hundreds of bags that had been partially filled last week. Each held dried pinto beans, rice, and some held 2-5 cans of fruit and vegetables or other items such as crackers, corn meal, and tortillas. We helped complete the bags by adding 2 quarts of shelf-stable milk. As we worked, other volunteers were filling small bags of popcorn and coconut from larger bags, so we added those, too.



Signing in



9:00 came, and the doors were opened. Those who hadn’t yet registered this year, gave their information to a volunteer, who qualified them based on residency and USDA income guidelines and gave them a blue laminated card. Everyone showed their blue card, signed in, received a chip, and exchanged it at the door to the bag room for their bag of groceries. Each person who received groceries also was given a large bottle of dish detergent (donated by Matthew 25: Ministries). 

Meanwhile, in the bag room, the prepared bags ran out and volunteers filling bags from scratch were barely able to keep up with the flow.

Who were the recipients of the food? We saw mostly relatively young Hispanic men and women, a great many with small children. We met a man asking if he could have meat and cereal, too, as he had nothing to feed his children. We met a woman raising her 7 grandchildren alone. We hope that these few staple items were a help to all the grateful folks who came.

All told, the crew of about 20 volunteers handed out close to 800 bags of food before the doors closed.

Angel Food Ministries



Home of Angel Food Ministries

Good food is expensive. So what can be done to get more affordable, high-quality food to people who are trying to stretch their food budget?

Enter Angel Food Ministries. It creates boxes of wholesome food, offers those boxes for order at costs lower than at retail grocery stores, and delivers them once a month to 5383 host sites (mostly churches) in 45 states. When the food arrives, volunteers group the food into orders for customers to pick up.

Pastors Linda and Joe Wingo

Angel Food Ministries is a 501(c)(3) organization that began in 1994 as the ministry of Emmanuel Praise Church. Both were founded by and are the life work of the Wingo family: CEO and Pastor Joe Wingo, his wife Pastor Linda Wingo, and their son Pastor Wes Wingo. The church is located in the front part of the Angel Food Ministries warehouse. Right now, the two organizations are legally distinct entities, but Pastor Joe sees them as one ministry.

We visited the headquarters in Monroe, GA, interviewed Pastor Joe, and toured the facilities with Bobbi Warburton, Heather Waldo, and chief distribution officer Johnny Willis.

We found it fascinating to get an inside look at how Angel Food Ministries operates. The process begins about 3 months before delivery, when the menus are determined. Each month’s offerings are different. For March, there are 13 separate boxes that a customer can order. They range in price from $21 to $51, and include both general meal boxes and specialty boxes, such as an allergen-free box, an Easter box, and 3 boxes especially for kids. The menu committee considers all the food items to which they have access through their distributors and orders items that are as nutritious and high-quality as they can find and still stay within the budget for that particular box.

How to assemble a pallet load

Food arrives at the Monroe, GA, warehouse and is stored in their huge freezer (big enough to hold 120 truckloads of frozen food) and their similarly sized cold-storage area. The week before distribution begins, workers prepack boxes of frozen food items and boxes of fresh produce.

When we arrived, prepack was finished and that part of the warehouse was neat and quiet. But the loading area was a beehive of activity because it was time for specific orders to be assembled onto pallets and the trucks to be loaded. We saw boxes of frozen foods loaded into the trailer first; then a Styrofoam bulkhead was taped into place to keep the frozen food frozen. Next the boxes of fresh produce and eggs were loaded in such a way that they would stay cold without freezing. Last came the dry items, and canned items. This 3-part packing makes sure all items arrive in good shape.

"Bucket Brigade" unloading at the drop site

At the end of each trailer was a box of paperwork detailing the items that belonged at each drop site and at each host site. Early on Saturday morning, the trucks from Angel Food Ministries arrive at between 1 and 3 drop sites per truck. Each drop site then distributes to several different host sites. Volunteers from each host site unload the truck, transfer into their own vehicles the boxes needed to fulfill their orders, drive to their own site, and distribute the orders to their customers.

A customer getting his order

We “followed the truck” to a drop site in Edgewater, FL, helped unload the boxes for the 4 host sites there, and then continued to the host site at the Great Commission Church in Titusville, FL.  Host site director Jill Brand said that this church really enjoys being an Angel Food Ministries site because it provides a valuable service to folks in their area. We helped distribute the orders to the customers who came in to pick them up. Done!  

Fresh Fruit and Veggie Box

Angel Food Ministries food appeared to us to be of high quality and to arrive in excellent condition. All the customers we spoke with agreed, and we heard no complaints other than a few people who said they didn’t use all the fresh produce in time. At Angel Food Ministries, we heard that they have a rigorous quality control process, take customer feedback seriously, and are always attempting to improve their selections. They also regularly compare their prices with prices at discount grocery stores to ensure that they continue to offer lower cost quality food.

Therefore, we think the Angel Food Ministries model provides a great way to stretch your food dollar.

Angel Food Ministries also impressed us with their support of several other ministries and programs. For example:

• Host sites, all of which are charitable organizations, receive a donation to their general fund from Angel Food Ministries of $1 per box sold. So far they’ve distributed over $32 million.
• Many of the 250 part-time workers who prepack boxes and load trucks are from local men’s shelters and rehab programs. Workers who are ready to progress with their lives can be trained here in skills such as operating a fork lift, and some have gone on to permanent jobs with Angel Food Ministries.
• In the past, Angel Food Ministries has not solicited donations and received only a tiny fraction of its funds that way. Last fall, however, they started "Sponsor A Soldier's Family," through which anyone can donate a box of food to a military family, to show gratitude for their service. They’ve established relationships with several military bases which select the families to receive the boxes. So far over 1,000 boxes have been sent. A similar program, called "No Child Goes Without," sends donated boxes of food to schools for distribution to children in need.
• Angel Food Ministries is working to make it easier for people in need to apply for and use SNAP (food stamp) benefits.  About ¼ of Angel Food Ministries customers use SNAP to buy Angel Food boxes, but they cannot order on-line like most customers. Host sites must place the orders on their behalf because the different benefit processing systems in place in each state don’t currently interoperate well enough to support online ordering. Angel Food Ministries is working with the USDA in an attempt to become a pilot program to allow SNAP recipients to place orders online. This seems like it should work well, since all products offered by Angel Food Ministries are food, and thus SNAP eligible. We hope this improvement for SNAP recipients will occur soon.

What is an Urban Garden?

Ama Shambulia and R.G. Lyons

Before we came to the West End Urban Garden in Birmingham, AL, we thought an urban garden was simply a garden in an urban location. However, this garden is very much more. As garden program manager Ama Shambulia told us, “People in this community are hungry for much more than food. … Our garden will revitalize the West End community’s life blood, body, mind, and spirit.”

Five years ago, R.G. Lyons, fresh out of Seminary, bought a house and moved to the West End of Birmingham, where 97% of the residents are African American and 47% live below the poverty line. R.G. had been appointed to start a United Methodist church there. He began with programs for youth twice per week, and expanded from there to bible study classes for their parents and others. Now, the Community Church without Walls meets in small groups in one member’s home and in the rooms of Urban Ministry, a mission of the United Methodist Church, with which R.G. works closely.

R.G. buried the parents of three kids, due to complications from diseases such as diabetes and congestive heart failure, which brought home to him the consequences of the diet that many in the neighborhood eat. Non-nutritious food is cheap, but fruits and vegetables are expensive and not readily available. (Only one in four people in this neighborhood have a car, the public transportation system is one of the worst in the nation, and the small local grocery stores carry little produce.) R.G. said, “We always ask, what is the need in this community? And how can we empower people to fulfill that need?” There was an obvious need for more fresh produce and more knowledge of how to prepare it to provide healthy, tasty meals.

West End Urban Garden

So, R.G. and volunteers from the community started a garden near the Urban Ministry building on a couple of vacant lots that previously held burned-out houses. We helped in the garden one Saturday in mid-February. Even at this time of year, there are quite a few things growing in the gardens -- pansies, herbs, onions, and collard greens that had over-wintered.

The garden plots include two large ground-level beds, one very large raised bed, and about 18 smaller raised beds, some of which people in the neighborhood can rent. We also saw fruit trees (4 apple and 1 pear, espaliered to grow flat along wires), a row of blueberry bushes, and a row of blackberry canes. There’s a tidy garden shed to hold the tools, compost piles, and a greenhouse frame.

Myron Pierre

Ama keeps everything orderly and well-planned. She’s a master chef and master gardener. She runs the garden program, helps children in the Urban Kids program (run by Urban Ministry) to garden, holds informal classes at the garden to help people learn gardening skills, and shows gardeners how they can prepare what they produce in wholesome, tasty ways. Ama put us to work weeding, rejuvenating the pansies, fertilizing, and planting onions, beets and carrots. Many more vegetables will be added as the season progresses.



The garden manager, Myron Pierre, also was working hard in the garden, turning soil, mixing the compost, and planting. Another volunteer, Lindsay Whiteaker, is a junior at University of Alabama Birmingham. Last year she made a great film about the garden and still comes back often to help out.



While we were working, we saw a glimpse of what the garden means to some of those in the neighborhood. Olivia and her daughter April stopped by. April wanted to help, so she was put to work watering the collard greens and onions, while her mom talked to Ama. Later, another neighbor stopped by to see how things were growing. He was sent home with onion starts to add to his own garden. There’s a neighbor across the street who tells people not to pick the produce, and generally keeps an eye on the garden.

What happens to the produce? Some is given to the elderly and those truly in need, served at the Urban Ministry lunch program, or given to those who volunteer in the garden. But the goal is not for the produce to be free, because, in Ama’s words, “It’s not a free-for-all. That would create an unhealthy imbalance, and that’s not a very dignified way of interacting with people.” Therefore, much of the produce is sold to a local restaurant or offered at a small produce stand to the neighborhood residents.

Similarly, Ama and R.G. think it’s very important that those who work hard in the garden are paid for their efforts. Both Ama and Myron are paid staff. This summer, they will be hiring two high-school interns to help with the gardening.


April waters collards and onions



And what difference has the garden made in the community? You’ll notice from these pictures that there is no fence around the West End garden. This encourages community members to experience the growing process. And they do! Many members of the community stop and give encouragement to those working in the garden. They may find out a bit about gardening and get a taste of the foods growing there, but more importantly, they see the garden as their own community center. There are summer and harvest celebrations at the garden. On Easter, Community Church without Walls holds their service in the garden, surrounded by the beautiful sight of growing plants.

As R.G. says, the garden meets community needs “in a very holistic way. It’s a place to work and get exercise, to meditate, and to spend time together.” In other words, the West End garden is building community, not just growing food.

David Holben: A Community Nutritionist's Perspective on Hunger

David Holben

Ohio is the 15th state in our Facing Hunger in America journey. At Ohio University in Athens, OH, we interviewed David H. Holben, PhD, RD, LD, and Professor of Food and Nutrition in the School of Applied Health Sciences and Wellness.

Dr. Holben teaches courses in dietetics, community nutrition, and research methods, and has co-authored (with Marie A. Boyle) the comprehensive textbook Community Nutrition in Action – an Entrepreneurial Approach. (5th edition, 2010, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth) We asked Dr. Holben to share with us how he thinks about hunger and the programs meant to alleviate it. Here’s a taste of what we learned.

Food insecurity is most often associated with poverty. In Canada, the term is “income-related food insecurity.” But Dr. Holben pointed out that not all people below the poverty line are food insecure. Some have developed self-sufficiency skills that keep them food secure -- at least until something happens, such as a job loss, illness, or an increase in the number of people they need to feed.

Food insecurity has very far-reaching physical and psychological health effects. Although not all the causal relationships are clear, food insecurity is highly correlated with factor such as

• Increased levels of overweight, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, especially in women
• Increased levels of depression and stress
• Increased birth defects
• Lower classroom performance and attendance in children
• More discipline problems, counselor visits, and suicide attempts among children
• Loss of family rituals such as holiday meals

The relationship between food insecurity and obesity may appear paradoxical, but Dr. Holben explained it like this. (See also Community Nutrition, page 331).

• Food insecure families may stretch their food budget and keep from feeling hungry by purchasing foods that cost less, are higher in calories, and are less nutritious. Sometimes such foods (for example, ramen noodles, sweetened cereals, and soda) are more readily available to people living in poverty than are more healthful options (for example, fresh fruits and vegetables).
• Food insecure families are likely to prefer foods that make them feel full, possibly sacrificing food quality for food quantity.
• Cycling between times of adequate food and times with inadequate food, may lead people to overeat and gain weight when food is available (such as right after SNAP benefits are received). When adequate food is not available, the person’s body may become more efficient and resist losing weight. This cycling may be more extreme for mothers, who may provide food for their children at the expense of food for themselves. Remember the scene in the movie, Erin Brockovich, when she lies to her children and tells them that she’s already eaten?

Damaging effects of food insecurity like these make it imperative for our country’s overall well-being that we effectively address the issue of hunger in America.

So what are the programs that Dr. Holben prefers?  When we asked him this question, he responded by comparing WIC (the USDA Food and Nutrition Service's Program for Women, Infants, and Children) with SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly Food Stamps). He prefers WIC because recipients qualify partly based on nutritional risk as determined by a healthcare professional, because only certain nutritious foods can be obtained with WIC support, and because WIC carefully measures outcomes such as iron levels and height and weight of the participants. By contrast, SNAP benefits are based mostly on financial need and can be used for all foods.

Dr. Holben said, “While I believe that people have the right to buy whatever food they want, I don’t agree that some of the foods allowed to be purchased with food stamps are appropriate. … If food stamps are meant to be a supplement to your food dollar, I think it would be OK to say you can’t buy foods such as pop with food stamps.”

One promising improvement to SNAP, called HIP (Health Incentive Pilot), is to be tested by the USDA in Hampden County, MA, beginning in December of 2011.  HIP will test whether SNAP recipients increase their purchase of fresh produce if they receive a rebate on their SNAP card for 30% of the cost. If this pilot produces positive results, Dr. Holben hopes it will become a national program.

In addition to federal entitlement programs such as WIC and SNAP, Dr. Holben sees an extremely important role for smaller, more local community nutrition efforts. He demonstrates his belief in producing some of his own food by gardening and keeping bees and chickens. He’s also personally involved in a huge set of community projects such as:

• Athens Community Food Initiatives
• Organic gardening courses for Live Healthy Appalachia
• ECOhio Garden—Everyone Can [in Ohio] Garden plants And Rake Dirt to Enhance Nutrition, a project to help individuals learn to garden, to improve their food access, and to enhance the nutrient density of their diets.
• With student Lori Gromen, a project to plant fruit trees at community gathering places in Athens. We checked out about a dozen of the trees shown on the tree map and found them looking healthy and ready for spring to come! For more information see these articles in The Post  and in Planet OHIO News.

Dr. Holben concluded our interview by saying, “I think America is very generous. It’s impressive how people do work tirelessly to feed people.”

Mennonite Mobile Meat Cannery

The temperature was in the single digits the frosty morning when we drove to the Valley View Mennonite Church in Spartansburg, PA. Parked next to the church’s loading dock was the object of our visit, the Mennonite Mobile Meat Cannery. We had come to learn how this long-standing charity of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) operates, and to help with the day’s canning of turkey meat.

The history of the Mennonite mobile meat cannery began in 1946, when hungry Europeans needed high protein food relief. Today, MCC distributes over 500,000 28-oz cans of meat worldwide each year, all produced by volunteer workers at the 33 stops the mobile cannery makes in 13 states and 2 Canadian provinces. Four volunteer canner operators spend overlapping 2 year terms driving the canner to the sites and working with local volunteers to produce the canned meat. We met operator George Wieler, who was on duty the day we were there.

Chunking turkey prior to canning

We also met Albert Brenner and Susan Bell, who have been coordinating canning at the Spartansburg site for many years, and we spoke on the phone with John Hillegass, MCC Canning Coordinator. Albert showed us the canning process, all of which is done under USDA rules and with USDA inspectors frequently on-site:

• Meat arrived at the canning site on a refrigerated truck. Spartansburg purchased boneless turkey thighs from Virginia Growers, and it arrived in 20-lb. bags on 1-ton pallets. (Earlier in the canner’s history, most meat was home-grown beef or pork. Now, about 85% of MCC meat is turkey. Reasons include that turkey is lower cost, acceptable in more countries worldwide, and easier and cleaner to can because they don’t have to drain off fat from the already lean turkey meat.) 
• Next, using a large meat grinder, 4 volunteers cut the turkey thighs into ¾” chunks. Each 60-lb batch of chunked meat was added to the large steam vat at the beginning of the canning line in the mobile cannery trailer. 




Packing turkey chunks


• Ten men operated the canning line. First, salt was added and two men used large paddles to pound and stir the meat until it reached a uniform 56 degrees F, warm enough to keep the meat from expanding too much and bursting the cans in the cooker. Then they placed a rack over the vat, loaded it with empty cans from the smaller truck you can see in the picture, and hand-filled each can to the proper weight. One or two men operated the lidding machine, and another put the sealed cans into a huge cylindrical metal basket.
• When the basket was full (140 cans), George hoisted it into one of the 6 steam pressure canners, tightened the lid, and recorded when the canner reached 246 degrees F. Each lot remained in the canner for 2 hours and 10 minutes to cook and sterilize the meat. While all 6 canners were cooking, workers sterilized equipment, prepared for the next runs, and had a few minutes to take a break.
 



George hoistng cans into the steam canner


• As each lot of cans was done cooking, George hoisted the basket out of the canner and into a cooling water bath for 15 minutes. The basket was then wheeled down to the church basement, where two lines of volunteers washed, rinsed, dried, and applied a label to each can. This is where we helped out.



Washing, rinsing, drying, labeling

• Other volunteers ran each can under an inkjet printer to mark it with the date it was manufactured. They set aside one can from each lot to be incubated by the USDA to make sure the contents were sterile, then packed all remaining cans in 24-can cartons hand-labeled with the lot number and printed “Turkey Chunks” and “Humanitarian Aid.”

At most sites, this whole process is repeated 7 times a day, beginning at 6:00am and ending after midnight. We were told that Spartansburg expected to can a total of 29,000 pounds of meat in three days: 10,500 pounds on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the remainder and cleanup on Thursday. At the end of the 3-day canning event, all the boxes will be loaded onto a truck using a “bucket brigade” and sent to MCC in Akron, OH, for distribution throughout the world.  Some cans go to the US, especially to disaster areas. But most go to places in great need of supplemental protein, such as Haiti, North Korea, and sites in eastern Europe and South America. MCC takes great care to distribute only to relief agencies that directly use the food to feed people in need.



Canned and ready to go



Susan explained the months and months of organizing it takes to sponsor a single 3-day canning event:

• Raise the funds needed to rent the canner and to purchase the meat and supplies 
• Arrange for food to feed the workers
• Arrange all the other accompanying activities, such as collecting donated soap and tying 33 comforters that groups had pieced earlier 
• Recruit and schedule all the volunteers

Overall, it takes about 40 volunteers at all times to run the canning operation, and often as many as 100 were present. Yet, nobody was barking orders.  Everyone seemed to know their roles, to naturally pitch in, and to keep the whole process running in an efficient, relaxed, and good-natured way.

Who were all those volunteers? When we were there, many were different groups of Amish who had hired vans and drivers to bring them to Spartansburg. Others were Mennonites, either from this church or others in western Pennsylvania or nearby areas of New York or Ohio. Volunteers traveled from as much as 1-2 hours away.

Is the meat cannery cost-effective? We believe the answer is yes. As far as we could tell, the per can cost to the local organizing committees of this MCC meat approximates wholesale prices. Therefore, you might think MCC should just buy cans of meat to ship to those in need. However, could as much money be raised simply to purchase relief supplies? No. People donate both money and volunteer hours partly because their donation includes the direct hands-on experience of caring for other people in need.

Folks at the Spartansburg site and the Mennonite Central Committee impressed us with their clarity of purpose: “The meat cannery allows my hands to better the lives of others around the world.” “You show love through taking care of other people.” “Our number 1 priority is to serve God, and this is a special way to do that.”

Or, as their label says, “Food for relief in the name of Christ.”