Pamela Dewitt apologizes for her home when you enter. She is in the process of moving while struggling to make ends meet. It makes the brown cardboard box sitting on her counter filled with a week’s worth of food all the more important.
“It helps me out because I’m on (a) low income,” said Dewitt, a Lansing resident. “I barely make what I get.”
Dewitt is one of 2,822 homes to benefit from the Church of Greater Lansing’s Food Drop 2010.
The Church of Greater Lansing is a network of churches in the Lansing area, and most are Christian denominations.
At the kick-off ceremony held Sunday at the Auditorium, members of various churches and faiths united under prayer and a common goal to help Lansing.
About 5,000 volunteers from 33 different churches came together to distribute almost 3,000 boxes of food to families across Greater Lansing as part of this year’s Food Drop.
“What we’re here to accomplish is of course feeding the families, but it’s also coming together as one body, as one church,” said Terrence King, a pastor at Christian Celebration Center Church, 419 Washington Square, in Lansing.
“Our pastors and churches are of many denominations, many cultures and we can come together and spend time together and show a sense of unity.”
Each box contains canned meats, fruits and vegetables — 17 to 19 pounds in total, which can feed a family of four for a week.
“No one’s pretending that one box of food is the answer to everything,” said Fred McGlone III, a senior pastor at New Covenant Christian Church and School, 4415 W. Saint Joe Highway, in Lansing.
“Just the fact that somebody cares, that someone says ‘Hey I’m not gonna let what I can’t do keep me from doing what I can do.’”
The churches also raised more than $110,000 for the boxes of food, said Stephanie Butler, coordinator of the Food Drop.
The boxes of food cost $60,000 and the extra money will be donated to food banks in the Lansing area.
The Church of Greater Lansing held its first food drop last year in response to the Lansing area’s high poverty rate.
Last year, the Lansing Food Bank reported a 32 percent increase in need in the Lansing area.
“A lot of people are hurting,” Butler said. “We want to make a difference. That’s the heart of the message.”
This year, the program grew to include 1,000 more families who received food and 15 participating churches.
“The need in Lansing is much bigger than what one church can do,” said Dave Karr, the director of Mid-Michigan Food Bank, which supplied the boxes of food. “There are a lot of collaborative efforts amongst churches.”
Karr estimated the work the group completes in one day during the food drop is equal to a month’s worth of work from a food bank.
“We don’t have officers or dues,” McGlone said. “We’re just pastors who have a heart for the city.”
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