Feeding America, as a partner in this endeavor, provided over 10,000 pounds of an assortment of produce and dairy products for this event. Photo courtesy Cadillac Church
With this in mind, the Cadillac Church’s youth collaborated with “Feeding America” to help by providing a free, contactless, food giveaway on June 8.
Feeding America, as a partner in this endeavor, provided over 10,000 pounds of an assortment of produce and dairy products for this event. Boxed up and ready to go, this allowed the food to simply be placed in people’s cars by volunteers wearing masks, reducing risk.
Recipients of the food were overjoyed with smiling, happy faces as they saw the food loaded in their vehicles. “This gives me hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.” said one person. “This is helpful to the community in a time of crisis,” replied Dave, another person who received food.
But the food was not the only thing that compelled people to partake in the giveaway. At first, not as many people as expected were showing up to the event. Several youth volunteers made a sign and waved them by the roadside. This compelled many people to receive much-needed assistance. “Thank the kids for standing by the street. I would not have stopped if it were not for them!” exclaimed one person.
During the event, over 150 families were served. Additionally, many more people received help as some of the food was transported to Veterans Food Bank and Habitat for Humanity after they received word of the event.
“Over and over I saw smiles of amazement as the young people loaded their vehicles,” says Tom Mejeur, a volunteer at the event. “The most genuine smiles saying, ‘someone cares.’" The most common comment was, “This is great. . . these youth groups, ‘We Are Called’ and ‘Youth of His Message’ are seasoned professionals. They know what to do and they enjoy it. They were doing this before the COVID-19 crisis came and they were up for it.”
Ariel Roldan, pastor of the Lake City and Cadillac churches, had a spiritual twist to the event. “I believe in God's providence and that it teaches us precious lessons," Roldan explains. “We providentially opened our church facility, not for us to be fed but to feed others. Not for our needs to be met, but to meet the needs of others. This needs to be our growing center in our worship, to have our hearts filled by the giving away of our time, talents and resources for our hurting world.
“Isaiah 58:10 confirms that is the best way to prepare our hearts to worship on Sabbath – If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday.” May God continue to cause His light of love to shine to our surrounding community through our church.”
If you would like more information about both of these youth groups, please visit cadillacsda.org and youthofhismessage.org.
Samuel Girven is the assistant Communication director for the Cadillac Church.
