Harvest Food Pantry

I received the following e-mail this afternoon. I'm posting it here as a courtesy to Sister Sharon.

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As most of you know I have been actively involved in Harvest Food Pantry (a ministry of Harvest Christian Fellowship Church, 2505 Washington Pike, Knoxville, TN 37917) since the summer of 1998 when we first opened our doors. We went from serving 7 families on that first day in July to around 150 families each time the doors open now.

That's approximately 525 people who will benefit from the food distributed each time we are open.

God has blessed this ministry beyond words with our small congregation solely
supporting it, with the exception of some occasional contributions and donations.
In addition to providing for us, God truly helps us offer those that come,
"Bread for their Body, as well as Bread for their Soul" through His Word!

As we open our doors this coming Friday for the first time in 2008 we continue to face some challenges that have arisen in the past few years, as quality food is increasingly more difficult to find. This is one of the most common problems associated with poverty and trying to fill the needs of the hungry. Trying to obtain food that will nourish them, instead of junk food (which is always readily available) is a difficulty we face on a continual basis.

In effort to help positively impact the people who come to us in need without asking others for financial support, I am simply asking everyone that I know who belongs to a Church, a Sunday School Class, a Community Club, works in an office, are Local Business owners,
or maybe just attend a Class that's looking for a Missions (type) Project to help support this ministry in this very simple way:

Your Group would Choose 1 Item such as, Peanut butter, or Cereal, or Oatmeal, or Spaghetti, or Flour, etc., (you get the idea). Then have your group collect ONLY that item on a continual basis throughout each month of the year.

At the end of each month, I will come and pick up whatever you collected.
If you have a local business, we can bring a container where you could collect donations of that item to help support the Hungry. It takes about 150 of any ONE ITEM to fill one set of grocery bags for distribution. If you collected 150 boxes of Cereal, there would be enough for every family to receive one in their bag for that week.

This would bless this ministry beyond words, it would certainly be a blessing to those who receive food from Harvest Food Pantry and of course you would be blessed in your giving.

I will make a list of Donors to be placed in each bag that is distributed, unless you prefer to remain anonymous.

Not including any other expenses, it costs approximately $650 a month to purchase enough food from Second Harvest Food Bank to feed 300 families (approximately 1,050 people). So, if your class, business, school, or other would rather take an offering and donate funds, you could be responsible for feeding over 1,000 people easily!
What a tremendous and rewarding feeling it is to know that you are impacting the mission field that exists right in your own backyard!

Also, if anyone is qualified to teach a Parenting Class or Budgeting Class and would like to donate a couple of hours of time, we would love to implement that in our ministry! If you have any area of expertise that you feel you could donate, or maybe you work in the Food Industry and have any "Day Old" items that could be donated, that too would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to read this.
I hope you will pray about helping us, help those who come to us with desperate needs!

You can contact me via e-mail: Sharon6tn@aol.com or on my cell phone: 865- 705-2559

With Sincere Gratitude,

Sharon Aruta
Harvest Food Pantry Director
Harvest ROC Ministries
865-637-1295 church office