The Power of a Congregation: Our Smart Choice

   Tonight members of Trinity Episcopal St. Charles will gather for Smart Choice distribution, a low cost food service that our church is a hub for. What it does is provide the essential food items in prepackaged boxes for much less than it would cost at the super market. But the amazing part of the program is the people can buy boxes to donate to our local food pantry. There have been months where we fill their freezers with chicken and vegetables, food items they often are in need of. One thing this project shows is how powerful a congregation can be when they come together on a project.

    The food program touches people in many different ways, here is Robert's story as told by our program leader:

Our Episcopal parish focuses on our mission – Faith. Compassion. Community.  One of our outreach programs provides low cost food through SmartChoice.  This program provides quality food that normally costs less than 50 percent as compared to local grocery store prices.  This is made possible since nearly all the distribution costs are eliminated through the donation of time of parish members.

Though it takes a lot of time and effort to provide this program to our community, our reward is in knowing how thankful people are in having such a beneficial program.

I remember Robert – a disabled quadriplegic veteran who lost the use of his arms and legs in Vietnam.  Robert’s mobility was limited to his motorized wheelchair and he paid a teenager to drive his specially equipped van to run errands on Saturdays.

One Saturday, I recognized the van as it pulled up to our parish.  For convenience, I found Robert’s order and carried it out to the van where I was met by his driver so that Robert did not need to leave the van.  A few minutes later, I noticed that the van was still parked with the ramp extended to the ground and saw Robert guiding his wheelchair up our sidewalk. I first thought that there must be something wrong with his order. 

Robert came into our parish hall, stopped his wheelchair and said, “I didn’t get the chance to thank you for such a wonderful program.”

Sometimes a simple “thank you” is more than just a courtesy – it is a tremendous reward for doing God’s Work.