Feeding the Hungry - Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, Augusta, GA

Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Augusta, GA was one of the six founding churches of Downtown Cooperative Church Ministries in 1978. It has helped people in many ways, but the work always involved food. Resurrection’s commitment has remained constant over the years, contributing money, board members and volunteers. Today DCCM is the largest food bank in the Augusta area. 

Several years ago my pastor asked me to be our church’s representative on the DCCM board. I agreed, figuring serving on a board would not be difficult duty. Then a few years ago DCCM’s executive director asked the board if we knew of anyone who had a pickup truck and could help her pick up food from Golden Harvest, our central food bank. It would save us the cost of renting a truck when we needed one. 

I agreed to do it and every week I would help her get the food back to our building where volunteers would unload it and put it away. At some point she developed breast cancer and it spread. Christie died about three months after changing the way we distribute food, offering a monthly drive-thru mobile market. People drive through our parking lot with the trunk of their car open and volunteers place food in the car. 

Instead of stopping our mobile markets the president of the board asked if I would take on Christie’s duties of ordering food, arranging pickup, planning each mobile market and organizing the volunteers. I was retired, so I agreed. Two years later we are still going strong, giving away more food than ever before. We increased the number of mobile markets and each month more people show up. We are on pace to give away 250,000 pounds of food in 2022. Besides buying food from Golden Harvest we recently started picking up hundreds of pounds of free food from a local Food Lion twice a week. 

This ministry has changed my life. I can see it as a powerful force in our community. It also is one of the things that has energized my church. We get volunteers from many local churches but I see the commitment from Resurrection growing every time we put out a call for volunteers or ask for pickup trucks to bring food to our building, which we get rent free from a Methodist church. 

It is a happy, rewarding ministry where volunteers show up with a smile. We actually get to see and talk to the people who receive our help, people of all ages and races, people from every part of our community including the homeless. 

And constantly I hear the volunteers say the same thing I say. For once, we know we are doing what Jesus wants us to do: feed his sheep.