Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. November has arrived, and along with the arrival of truly beautiful fall weather and the first forecast of “some snowflakes mixed with rain,” wood fires, and the planning for Thanksgiving travel and food, comes the arrival of the very real issue of food insecurity for our neighbors in Rochester.

This past Sunday, many of you very generously brought bags of groceries to Calvary to help support 125 Live and Gage school families with supplemental food. That food was delivered yesterday. Thank you. However, this work of outreach and support is a marathon, not a sprint. There is, as you know, enormous uncertainty in the system that networks to help those in our neighborhoods who live, either temporarily or, in the case of the elderly, disabled, and those raising children with profound illnesses, permanently, with food insecurity. When parents and guardians have to choose between feeding their families and paying rent and utilities, then we see the seeds planted for future homelessness, enormous stress, and medical problems.

Calvary, for the foreseeable future, is going to “adopt” 125 Live and Gage school with food support. You may donate nonperishable food items whenever you think of it – canned fruits (in fruit juice), vegetables, rice, beans, pasta, pasta sauce, flour, sugar, baking soda and powder, canned tuna, chicken and ham, peanut butter and jelly, and so much more.  On Mondays, Calvary staff and volunteers will deliver this food to 125 Live and Gage. At Gage, if the resource room director discovers that they have more food than they can store, she will direct food to other schools in the network. If you have any questions or would like to volunteer to deliver food, please be in touch with Colleen Spillers (colleenspillers@gmail.com), who has an article in this Visitor, or me at rector@calvary-rochester.org. You may also call the church office.

If you are more able to donate financially, please write a check to Calvary and mark in the memo line, “food support.” We will send volunteers to shop with that donation. Neither Gage nor 125 Live can accept cash donations.

Calvary is an enormously generous, caring, curious, and passionate congregation. We can’t fix everything, but we can do this. And we can’t save the world, but that’s ok; Jesus Christ already has. In response to God’s great love through Christ, we can feed some hungry people.

In gratitude and faith,