The following is an email sent to the Portland Public Affairs Directors, Gene and Arlene Platt, describing our stake's efforts to incorporate more service as part of the Hastening of the Lord's work. This was was written soon after our 3rd annual faith-based, community food drive.
The food drive came about in early 2012. I had just been installed as stake president and a committee was already working on a Day of Service project for September of that year. In the past, we had tried to partner with other churches, but apparently they hadn’t responded to our out-reach letters. The committee was struggling with a worthy project that would include other churches. They had come to the conclusion it was impossible to connect with the leaders of other faiths.
Finally, they came back with a food drive idea. And, because there was a concern that other churches would turn us down again, someone suggested we encourage members to go to their non-member neighbors. Admittedly, my first impression was that this isn’t much of a service project…you don’t even break a sweat! You just pick up sacks and drop them off and you’re done. Now what? But when I heard the idea of taking sacks to our neighbors, I was touched deeply in my heart. It was a stroke of genius and inspiration, whoever came up with the idea.
I have always been concerned that, because of technology and busy lives, we were all losing contact with our neighbors. For years, we’ve (our family) gone around to our neighbors Christmas caroling and that has kept us tied to them, but there were few other opportunities to connect with them except an occasional wave while driving by. I loved the idea of inviting neighbors to join with us in a worthy, non-denominational cause that would help the less-fortunate and many churches in our community. Then, I thought, what a wonderful idea it would be if every Christian went to their neighbor. These are the last days. Difficult times are coming and when men’s hearts begin to fail, those in every neighborhood will want to know where are the believers, where are those with faith in God?
So I began setting up appointments with pastors throughout the east side (those who would give me an appointment; not all would). Fortunately, I had a number of pastor friends already in the Chamber of Commerce (I’ve been involved in two chambers of commerce for the past 5 years; something i was forced into when I was laid off from my job of 19 years and, because of my age, unable to find work at age 60 I went into a home-based business that requires networking). Those friendships helped me get into other doors and by our first food drive in 2012, we had a handful of churches, who consented to participate. Their participation was meager, but it was a start.
Last year we got more participation and the food drive committee, headed up by Patti Paxson, started meeting at the Greater Gresham Baptist Church. We also pulled off a dinner for 10 that included representatives from the Seventh Day Adventist and the founder of a church in Damascus. Subsequently, the Seventh Day Adventist set up a display at our Preparedness Fair in May of this year and our contact in Damascus has been a helpful ally. We have had he and his wife to our home for dinner; a delightful evening.
This year, we got a few more (still not very many, only 9 churches), but we’re learning a lot and the depth of commitment among the few other churches is beginning to take root. We brought in Joyce and Romeo Betita, as our Stake Service Specialists, to head up the food drive in our own stake (working through the priesthood quorums) so Patti could focus on the other churches. She has done an outstanding job in building relationships with the Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics and a variety of others. A month or so ago I spent two hours with Pastor Russ Baley, of the Sanctuary Church in Gresham, at his church and food pantry and from that visit came a deepening friendship so that he was willing to make the YouTube video with me. He has not told me personally, but Patti says he’s received some pushback from others (assuming other pastors) for doing the video. But he remains my friend. I hope to have he and his wife to our home for dinner one day soon.
Because a food drive really isn’t a lot of work on the members’ part, I asked that we not make it our Day of Service project this year, but encourage the wards to conduct their own projects. Then we held the stake (and community) food drive on Oct 11. We declared Monday, October 6, “Food Drive Family Night” (a terrific Patti Paxson idea) in which all members (and those of other faiths) were to deliver food sacks to their neighbors and notify them when they’d be back later in the week to pick up the sacks. Some of our members really got into it, taking as many as 10-15 sacks. It was a huge door-opener for our members, which we hope will lead to deeper friendships with non-LDS and eventually gospel sharing.
We have decided that in 2015 we really want to focus on our members (and all believers in the community) going to neighbors, to create a loaves and fishes miracle. So we’re going to make the food drive our Day of Service in 2015. For the roll-up-your sleeves service project, we are going to encourage our members to join in the East Hill Church’s Community Care Day, that they have been organizing (never inviting us) for all churches in Gresham for a number of years. They clean up and fix up parks and public schools in the area a couple of weeks before school starts (late August). They get hundreds of volunteers.
This year I approached East Hill Church (a known antagonist of our missionaries) and asked if they would allow us to join with them in this worthy effort. They turned me down due to "doctrinal issues." However, the member of their church, who organizes the Community Care Day, called me later and asked if we’d still send volunteers, they were in desperate need. We immediately put out the word and explained to stake members that this church, which has not been kind to us over the pulpit, needs our help. Could we please come to the rescue? We sent the same word to President Craft, of the Gresham Stake, and he joined with us in asking his stake’s members to register for the projects, too. We have no way of knowing how many from our stakes showed up, but we know in some of the 20 or so locations where there were projects, LDS accounted for up to half the volunteers. All the full-time missionaries in our stake were involved. The organizer sought me out personally at the project where I was working, with two grandsons, to express her personal thanks. She told me that what looked like was going to be a dismal turnout resulted in the biggest number of volunteers ever (I think 500 in all). While our church got no recognition, those in supervisory positions were well aware of the LDS turnout and were extremely grateful. It was a true blessing for our members to have the opportunity of rolling up our sleeves and rubbing shoulders with those of other faiths.
So that’s our plan for next year, to join with the East Hill Church in late August (officially or unofficially) and make that our roll-up-our-sleeves Day of Service. Then we’ll have our Faith-Based, Community Food Drive on Sept 19, 2015 with a focus on taking sacks to our neighbors.
