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More at PolkCountyNewspaper.com.

I’d like to let you know of another wonderful opportunity to touch the lives of our neighbors.  As you know, we have been in conversation with the Midwest Covenant Home in Stromsburg about volunteering to spend some time gardening and visiting with the elders in residence during the summer months.  Although the majority of our time has been spent bringing life to the Swede Haven Community Garden nearby, the residents of MCH have never been far from our hearts.

On Monday, July 6th at 7pm, we will begin spending evenings with the elders each Monday and Thursday over the next few months – helping them tend the flowers and vegetables in their containers and raised beds, followed by reading aloud some short stories from Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul and perhaps some current events from the newspapers.  I believe this will be a very positive experience for the elders: a chance to be active, to garden, and to reminisce about their owning gardening experiences.

The nights we have planned for July and August are:

Monday, July 6              Thursday, July 9
Monday, July 13            Thursday, July 16
Monday, July 20            Thursday, July 23
Monday, July 27            Thursday, July 30

Monday, August 3          Thursday, August 6
Monday, August 10        Thursday, August 13
Monday, August 17        Thursday, August 20
Monday, August 24        Thursday, August 27
Monday, August 31

Although I will plan to be there most evenings, it would be great to have additional volunteers to create more opportunities for interaction with the elders.  I’m guessing we’ll have between 8 to 12 elders on most nights, and the Activities Director assured me that, barring extreme heat, the residents can spend the entire time outdoors.  I’d guess most evenings the activities will last an hour or maybe a bit more.

Please let me know if any of these activities interest you (watering, weeding, chatting, reading aloud, etc), and what nights you’d like to join in.

Again, thanks for all you do for our neighbors through A Place at the Table.

Blessings,
Jason

On Saturday, at a meeting of team captains at the Kitchen to update us on the plans for the move, I was asked to join the Steering Committee for Matt Talbot’s $1.4M “Witness to HOPE” capital campaign that will be launched very shortly to raise the needed funds to relocate the Kitchen from their current location to the Carnegie Library area on North 27^th St.    

As part of the Committee, I am excited to be able to give voice to the many volunteers and supporters of Matt Talbot that hail from outside the Lincoln metro area.  About 20% of MTKO’s volunteers travel, like we do, to serve at the Kitchen, and I believe we will have some great opportunities this spring and summer to facilitate events in our area to tell the story of Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach and how important their mission is to the homeless and working poor in Lincoln.   

In talking with Sarah Sr. at the last meal, she indicated that they are thinking about a music festival fundraiser this summer as one possibility.  It sounds as if the campaign will have a significant “grassroots” flavor – small gatherings of people where the staff or Board of MTKO can interact personally with folks interested in the Kitchen and how they might help with the move.  Please be thinking of some other creative ways we might gather people together in our area to tell them about this great organization, and our experiences there. 

I will be attending the 1^st Steering Committee meeting on March 3^rd in Lincoln, and will give everyone an update on how this will unfold in the coming months.  If you have any ideas you’d like me to share with the Committee, just drop me a line before then!

Here’s an excerpt:

In soup kitchens, food pantries and universities across the country, activists are planting the seeds for an overhaul of the way America feeds its more than 35 million hungry people, the first major challenge to a system largely developed in the 1960s.
They have begun providing food where people live and work, reconsidering the need for big, urban facilities and pushing for larger government food subsidies.
The goal is to make food more easily available to working poor women, children and others who, research shows, are a larger portion of the hungry than the urban homeless. They also hope to lessen the stigma associated with standing in line for a hot meal or groceries.

Link: A Fresh Look At How Best To Get Food To 35 Million

This September, national Hunger Action Month, columns in the “Local View” have illustrated the impressive ways that Nebraskans respond to the needs of our friends and neighbors: The folks at Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach continue to serve people in an extraordinarily warm and dignified manner, the Food Bank of Lincoln is meeting the challenge of growing demand, and Nebraska members of the Army National Guard stepped up to the task of delivering food and water to hurricane victims. September even marks the beginning of harvest time, when those involved in our state’s massive agriculture industry pull in a crop that helps to feed the nation.

Read more on the Lincoln Journal-Star’s Web site.

The last few months have been extraordinarily busy at the Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach. Meals and outreach services are up from last year, and I know other agencies are experiencing this as well.

September is deemed Hunger Action Month. It is also the month we celebrate Labor Day, a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country. Currently, however, economic conditions are challenging us all. The workers I meet at Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach are struggling.

Read MORE.