Women’s Ministries has been looking for a way to bless our community. When we heard that most colleges have a gap in food service when athletes come for early fall training, we knew we could help.
We are planning to feed the Itasca Community College (ICC) football and volleyball players on two different days in August (the 10th and 11th) before their food service plans take effect. This will be quite an undertaking since there could possibly be up to 95 mouths to feed.
We had originally planned to feed the students for five days. We had contacted several area churches to see if they would want to contribute to this effort. We were greatly encouraged to find out that two other churches had committed to serving meals on two of the days and another is still deciding. We are so excited to see the Christian community step up to bless these students and hope that it can be an ongoing ministry each year.
In addition to serving the meals, we’re hoping to send each student home with a care package before the weekend that would include a $5 gift card to a local restaurant/convenience store and some non-perishable food to get them through the weekends.
Because of this, we’re asking for help from the entire church body. There are a number of ways you can help:
- Donate items for the care packages: $5 gift cards to Subway, Burger King, Holiday or any place with food that is within walking distance of the college (our goal is 100 cards). We could also use ramen noodles, Easy Mac, cereals, canned dinners, protein bars, or anything that college students can easily prepare and eat. We could also use disposable storage containers to send any leftovers home with the students.
- Help with bagging up the care packages (August 8th).
- Transportation: Help haul kids from the college to our church and back on any of the days.
- Help with meal prep and set-up, greeting, serving, and clean-up on the days that we serve meals.
- Hand out flyers to the ICC students letting them know the dates of the meals and that some transportation is available.
If you would like to donate items, you can bring them by the church anytime from now through the beginning of August. We will have a box near the welcome center to collect the items.
If you would like to volunteer your time in any other way, please sign up at the welcome center and list the area in which you’d like to help. We will use an online sign-up service to make scheduling easier. We will send the link to all those who signed up to help so be sure to include your email address.
Update
As of July 26th, we have received twenty $5 gift cards to Subway, $200 dollars to help with food expenses, and a donation of five smoked pork shoulders for use in BBQ’d pulled pork sandwiches. Your generosity is astounding and so much appreciated!
Contact: Michelle Schwake, Women’s Ministry Leader | 952-240-0903 | mtschwake@gmail.com or michelle@grefc.org
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