“Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do unto me,” says our Lord and Savior. In celebration of His birth, last year, we announced that St. Rose was starting a bold new initiative to end Hunger called “Feed and Be Fed”.
The simple program asked all of us to pick up one non-perishable item during our routine grocery shopping and to bring the item to Mass and place it in the collection bin. During Mass, we in turn are fed. It’s that simple!
• There are 80,000 people in Montgomery County either hungry or struggling to put food on the table. One-third of them are children!
• St. Rose parishioners set an initial goal to collect 80,000 servings and distribute them to local food banks including Manna on Main Street in Lansdale, the Mattie Dixon Food Cupboard in Ambler, Inter-Faith Housing Alliance Cupboard in Roslyn, Catherine’s Cupboard at Gwynedd Mercy University and St. Helena Food Cupboard in Olney.
On behalf of all of these food cupboards, and those that they served, “THANK YOU!” We achieved our goal of collecting 80,000 servings of food this year which is more than the number of seats at Lincoln Financial Field!
This simple act, done by many of us in unison, has been a tremendous boost to the food banks and to those in need. It’s truly inspiring to see how St. Rose parishioners have worked on this project – and we invite you to be part of it again!
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of our parish, we are continuing our food collection program and calling it Feed and Be Fed 100 with a new goal of collecting 100,000 servings of food in 2019.
As a group of people that believe we should help those in need, we are asking you once again to work together to accomplish this important and sizeable goal. If each one of us commits to being here weekly to offer our prayers and food donation we can provide meaningful and life-giving help to hungry families in our community. With our hearts open, we too will be fed by the Word of God and Eucharist.
There are also opportunities through-out the year to get more involved with the Social Justice team to see the effects of this work first hand. You can join us in delivering food, visiting the homeless shelters, and being part of our outreach efforts in the coming year. Contact us at jselner@srol.org offer your assistance. Thank you!