“There’s a huge need,” Suzanne Prescott, from the Butler County Educational Service Center said, pointing to 12.6 percent of economically disadvantaged students identified in the Lakota Local Schools. This is the second year of the summer lunch program, which has grown as community members adopted multiple apartment complexes and mobile home neighborhoods.
“We think if Jesus walked the earth, he would have done this,” Connie Landes of Crestview Presbyterian Church in West Chester Twp. said.
Her church has teamed up with Zion Global Ministries, Tylersville Road Christian Church and West Chester Baptist to adopt two neighborhoods.
Many of the 45 children registered often are lined up by the time volunteers get there, she said.
“Everyone has just been so friendly and so appreciative,” she said. “The kids are absolutely precious. It’s given us the opportunity to get to know some of the kids a little better too.”
Lord of Life Lutheran Church member Jennifer Perry has been coordinating a program for St. Maximilian Kolbe, Parish, Bethany Baptist, Christ the King Lutheran, West Chester Presbyterian, Faith Community United Methodist, Bethany United Methodist, St. Anne’s Episcopal, Allen Temple and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.
“I really feel like God is the one that inspired everyone to participate,” she said. “Without everyone’s participation there’s no way this program could succeed.”
And while many churches donate to missionaries far away, she said this is a close-to-home issue that affects everyone.
“Our children go to school with the children we are serving,” she said. “All too often, people want to make donations and put it in a box and walk away. Really, I think we are called to get to know the people we are serving.”
Keith Wilson, life groups and outreach minister for Center Pointe Christian Church, said his congregation expanded the program this year after working with Heritage Elementary School students in a reading program called Whiz Kids. Many of those students lived in a nearby neighborhood. Studies show students can lose a half a school year of literacy development over the summer, so his congregation developed a lunch and reading program for 50 days with 50 students.
Each Wednesday, after a book club, where volunteers eat lunch and read with students, the children are given a book to take home. Some days, impromptu ball games take place. Some volunteers bring bubbles, crayons and coloring books.
The number of students receiving meals continues to grow, Wilson said, as do the relationships.
Churches are good at taking care of their own, he said, but it is often a struggle to show Christ’s love in a practical way to those outside the walls, he said.
“In the eyes of most community members, the church is just kind of a building,” he said. “Jesus did (outreach) better than anybody. From what I can read in the gospel, he spent more than 80 percent of his time out among the people.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5067 or lhilty@coxohio.com.
About the Author