Earth Day and LINK

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it on the waters” - Psalm 24:1-2.

By Lisa Lombardozzi

LINK President 

www.linkagainsthunger.org

This month of April featured Earth Day and my dear friend, Bob Ashdown, beautifully illustrated how LINK participates in recycling on a daily basis.  I love the quote by John Muir, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”  Muir was one of our country’s first environmentalists and co-founded the Sierra Club In 1892.  Another one of his quotes, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul” speaks to how God created the place we live and dwell. It is our responsibility to care for the earth  and the people who live in it.  

LINK volunteers help in many ways to recycle food and items that might otherwise end up in trash cans and they care for the people in our community who need an extra hand to get through rough times.  It is this show of love and respect that keeps many of us volunteering month after month. Volunteers of all ages are always needed and welcomed! 

Recycling

Much of our food donations arrive in plastic bags or boxes.  Reusable plastic and paper bags are stored for packing our outgoing food.  Unusable plastic bags that are torn are recycled at local stores.  Corrugated cardboard boxes are used to store food in and the ones not needed are recycled. We also receive cloth bags that we use for our food deliveries to client's homes.  A good project for groups is to collect paper bags or cloth bags for LINK.  They are always in need!  We also use the recycled plastic bags to sort food at our Mobile Food Pantry.  Nothing goes to waste! 

Food Rescue - Volunteers pick up food daily donated by area merchants and schools that would otherwise end up in landfills.  Bob read that discarded food is now the largest item by volume in landfills and that Americans throw away about half of the food grown/produced in our country.   Our volunteers take some of that food directly to distribution points such as shelters, senior apartment complexes, the Closet, and the Neighborhood Resource Center.  Other volunteers sort the food coming into the pantry, discarding the true "spoiled" food and making it easier for the packers to include the good stuff in preparing for LINK deliveries.

Food that would be normally thrown away at Trader Joe’s Grocery Store is rescued 3 days a week by volunteers.  One of these groups include two students from Herndon High’s SAGA (Students against Global Abuse) club.  This sorting of perishable food is a great "service project" activity for youngsters and their parents if too young to do it on their own.  Some of the food from the elementary school cafeterias is picked up by Girl Scout Cadette Troop 1255 who turn the close to expiring fruits and milk into homemade treats for various senior apartments – Cascades Village, Kendrick Court, Herndon Senior Center, William Watters House. They also have shared their donations with Artemis House (emergency shelter for families and individuals fleeing domestic abuse) and Embry Rucker Shelter.  

LINK Shelves Replenished

Crops Plus business owner, Carren held a food drive during a recent event in Herndon and collected hundreds of pounds of food for LINK; Sterling Playmakers’ production of Hansel and Gretel collected food and collected over 5 boxes for LINK; and Holy Cross Lutheran dropped off a large collection of food for LINK. 

Weekend at a Glance

Bob, our Pantry Manager met with a Girl Scout group Thursday evening for their service project.  On Saturday, he met with two 14-year-old Boy Scouts working on a service merit badge; three Confirmation-candidates and their dads from Floris United Methodist Church who did a food collection for us; and a high school junior and her mom from Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church looking to volunteer.  On Sunday he met with a woman, also from Our Lady of Hope, who wanted to volunteer with her first grade daughter as well as her Daisy Troop.  They will come to the pantry on May 4th to help with the Loudoun County Food Drive (see below).     

Mobile Food Pantry – April

We had another beautiful day for our April Mobile Food Pantry.  The Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB) donated 6,800 pounds of food which consisted of white potatoes, onions, cabbage, assorted fruit (apples, peaches, plums, etc.), crackers, and miscellaneous items.  We had about 12 volunteers help out on a very warm and sunny day.  We served 187 families comprising or 935 men, women and children.  When 5 o’clock rolled around, we were out of food and everything was cleaned up.  The INOVA Mobile Hope bus was there and served more than 20 children. Plan to join us for one of our upcoming Mobile Food Pantry dates – we meet on the 2^nd Tuesday of each month in the rear parking lot of Christ the Redeemer Church in Sterling from 2 – 5 pm.  You can see some of the photos on our Face Book page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/LINK-Against-Hunger/168750539815751. 

Our next dates are May 14^th and June 11^th.  You can sign up through the link below.

Loudoun Food Drive – May 4th

For the second year, a multi-faith effort is underway to organize a County -wide food drive to help the hungry in Loudoun.  The name of this countywide food drive is titled: Love Your Neighbor, Feed Your Neighbor.  Last year, with the support of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors providing a Proclamation and declaring May 2012 as Hunger Awareness Month, this multi-faith effort resulted in the following success: 1,100 volunteers collected over 55,000 lbs of food and over $12,000 in monetary donations for 5 food pantries throughout Loudoun: LINK, Loudoun Interfaith, Messiah's Market, Catholic Charities, and Seven Loaves.  Tree of Life in Purcellville has joined in 2013.  To see more information, go to www.lynfyn.org.

"They should gather all the excess food during these good years that are coming. By Pharaoh's authority they should store up grain so the cities will have food, and they should preserve it" - Genesis 41:35.