A Plea for Finchley Foodbank
Dear Parishioners
I write this on Saturday of this weekend, 30th June.
A plea for help for the Food Bank
The cupboard is nearly empty!
I made an appeal to you for contributions of food two or three weeks ago, but alas it was a meagre haul. I realise that shopping in this heat is exhausting. And we always seem to have one appeal or another on the go. But still: here are the statistics.
Today at the food bank, we gave food aid to help support:
47 adults and 22 children
We have been going for two and a half years, and demand has been slowly rising this year, for reasons that are not clear to us. One factor seems to be that social workers and other care professionals now know about it us and refer more clients to us. Each person who comes has a story to tell about what brought them here.
Today because of building works and a prior engagement in the More O’Ferrall Hall, we had to ask our food bank clients to wait outside in the boiling sun. They waited patiently. Grateful thanks to Peter and Lilian Murphy, Anna Maughan and others who toiled in the same sun to bring our clients the food they needed. Even so, towards the end we ran out of some staples, especially tinned meats and tinned fish. I would also like to thank here the anonymous donor who drops Tesco vouchers through the door from time to time.
Could you bring some imperishable food items next weekend? Could you even drop something off in church or presbytery before next Saturday, so that we have more food in stock when the food bank opens? I know that if you can do so, many people will be grateful for your generosity. What we are doing is what we hear about in our second reading today from 2 Corinthians. The region of Macedonia to the north of Greece had been going through a terrible famine. The prosperous cities in the far south of Greece were unaffected. Today, as we hear, St Paul is asking the Christians of those cities – the first Christian communities – to give him some resources that he can take back to the hungry people of Macedonia. We ask the same today, for Finchley Food Bank.
Fr Terry