By Kenneth Kowald
On the second Sunday of every month, the Sunday school students at the First Presbyterian Church of Forest Hills join the adults in the offertory. While the adults pass the plates for money and checks, the children walk up the aisles to collect bags of food donated by the congregation.
The bags of food are brought before the altar. Those who did not bring food could have contributed money to the same cause.
After the collection, the children sit on the floor and take part in a Children’s Talk, which is about the growing need for food and money to help the hungry in Queens. The children realize they are part of a community that cares about other people in these hard times.
The non−perishable food and money go to the Queens Interfaith Hunger Network, founded in 1983 by the Queens Federation of Churches in partnership with Catholic Charities Brooklyn & Queens. It serves more than 115 soup kitchens and food pantries in the borough, which provide more than 7 million meals annually. The network provides technical assistance to churches, synagogues and other community organizations on establishing and operating an emergency food pantry or soup kitchen.
The Queens Federation of Churches is at 86−17 105th St. in Richmond Hill. To learn more about it, visit queenschurches.org.
Signs of the growing need for such services are everywhere. The latest manifestation is among those known as the “newly needy,” individuals and families struggling with unemployment, the inability to keep up with mortgage payments or other bills and handicapped by medical expenses. These are not people from low−income areas. They are the middle−class workers and families caught up in the horrors of the recession.
According to a survey by Feeding America, a charity that distributes more than 2 billion pounds of food annually, demand at food banks across the country rose by 30 percent in 2008, compared to 2007. The number of food stamp recipients was up last year by 17 percent across New York state.
According to recent reports by the Food Bank for New York City, more than 3.1 million individuals have difficulty affording the food they need. This figure is a 55 percent increase since 2003.
The Food for Survival food bank in the Bronx collects, warehouses and distributes food to some 1,200 emergency and community food programs, many of them in Queens. To learn more, visit foodbanknyc.org.
The nonprofit City Harvest estimates that this year it will provide feeding programs in the city with 23 million pounds of food — 13 million of it as fresh fruits and vegetables.
The need for the children in the Forest Hills church and for others in our community to help the hungry is not going to subside soon. While there are small, hopeful signs, the end of the recession is not in sight.
But all of us can help with food, money and volunteering.
Take a cue from First Lady Michelle Obama. Early in March, she went to Miriam’s Kitchen in Washington, D.C., which serves homemade meals to 4,000 homeless people annually along with social service assistance.
She told the homeless that day, as she helped deliver their meals, “My job here is to serve you.”
A good motto for all of us when we help those in need with food, money or services.
