Mission 1. The collection begins!

The boxes are out in the atrium.  I hope you are beginning to gather your food for the Food Bank.
Sunday October 30, Diane Riley, Director of Advocacy of the Community Food Bank will talk to us about Hunger in America.

I have started shopping for food and for donations to the Food Bank.  I bought some Peter Pan Peanut Butter in a plastic jar, (remember no glass jars) and grape jelly also in a plastic jar.  You can tell the jar is plastic if it gives when you push against it.  The Peter Pan Peanut butter had a code on it for a contribution from Conagra for Child Hunger Ends Here.  I went online but their contribution had ended in August but that also means I bought the peanut butter before the price hike!
I went to the website of www.childhungerendshere.com and I found out a lot of information about childhood Hunger. It also links with Feeding America which also has a lot of information about hunger including a call to reach out to Congress just as the UCC Mission 1 site does.

The third component of Mission 1 is donation.  It can be a donation by the Board of World Fellowship to represent all of us.  But it can also be a donation of money that you make when you buy food, which I did recently.  Look for the colored Community Food bank cards that are at the checkout.  They are for $1.00, $2.00 and $5.00 denominations.  You will never miss that money and you can do it year round instead of once a year.  Hungry people don't suffer hunger only one time a year so we should make sure the Food Bank has food year round.

There are other programs beside the Food Bank that feed the hungry.  Some groups are soup kitchens or food and clothing distributes like FISH in Dunellen.  I found out recently that the food pantry of FISH is low.

Shoprite of Hillsborough  New Jersey the town where I live is collecting money through
 Partners in Caring  Fighting Hunger in Your Neighborhood.  Mine is not the only Shoprite that is participating in this program. Other grocery stores like Stop & Shop have wipe out hunger programs as well

So let's make this a year round event!

Mission 1 Cost of Peanut Butter going up

"A staple of school lunches nationwide may soon be in short supply and what is available will cost more, the result of good cotton prices and bad weather, according to an article on the website Harvest Public Media. 

"We have quite a peanut shortage this year," agricultural economist Tiffany Arthur is quoted as saying. Arthur works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency, which makes emergency loans to farmers. "Things are snowballing and prices are sharply rising.""

The shortage also comes at a tough time, Arthur says, adding that peanut consumption normally increases during hard times, like now. Since the recession started in 2008, peanut butter consumption has jumped by 10 percent, the USDA says. Peanut butter consumption usually goes up just 1 or 2 percent in a regular year.

Source: harvestpublicmedia.org/article/787/pricier-pbjs-forecast-thanks-peanut-shortage/

Why do I feature this article?  You can probably afford to pay the increase in cost to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for your children's lunch box.  But think of the people who live in poverty as the article above says peanut butter consumption goes up during a recession since it is a cheap source of protein.

It is one of things on the  list that the food banks want.  But if you decide to donate peanut butter make sure it in unbreakable plastic containers.  Also since we want healthy food make sure that the oil and sugar content is low which makes it even more expensive.

 Here is the list of the most wanted items for the food bank.

Peanut Butter (no glass please)

Jelly (no glass please)

Canned Meats (tuna, chicken, ham)

Canned Vegetables

Canned Fruits

Pasta

Pasta Sauce (no glass please)

Cereal

Rice

You may start bringing food to church and place it in the boxes starting the beginning of November.

Remember November 13 is the big food donation day.  Bring food and a friend to church on that day.

Jeannette Brown

UCC Rep

Mission 1 Census Data

This is the poster that you may have seen in the hall in Christ Church.  Mission 1 is based on the UCC motto That they may all be one.

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"One in seven Americans are living in poverty, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today -- the highest level since 1994.
But the increase in the federal poverty rate, to 14.3 percent last year from 13.2 percent in 2008, was notably smaller than the 15 percent many experts had been predicting as the country has struggled to emerge from a painful recession.
"The bad news is that poverty is high and it's going up, but not as dramatically as we had feared," said Sheldon Danizger, director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan.
An estimated 43.6 million Americans in 2009 were living off incomes below the federal poverty line, or around $11,000 for an individual under 65 or $22,000 for a family of four.
The total number, an increase of 3.7 million over 2008, is the largest in 51 years, since the government first started tracking poverty data. "

The above is a quotation from one of the ABC TV stories about Hunger in America.  For the full article go to   http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/poverty-rate-increases-recession-highest-level-1994-census/story?id=11652753


This is another reason for the need for food. 


Jeannette Brown
UCC Rep.

Mission 1 Hunger in America

When I was at  the UCC General Synod I first heard about Mission 1.  The presentation struck me and also the concept.  So after I left Tampa I was ready to start this program and some churches did.  So in order to be really prepared to launch it now I kept tuned to the media about stories about hunger in America and the world and I was not disappointed.  If you read the daily papers as I do or even if you get your news on line or on television there have recently been a lot of stories about hunger.  Maybe you skipped over them in order to read the "real" news.  But even in the headline news about the economy and joblessness and unemployment and underemployment if you drill down to the human factor you will find people who are either going hungry or eating unhealthy fast food because it is cheap.

This is the idea behind Mission 1.  At Synod there was a fitness drive which was inspired by Michelle Obama  We signed up for pedometers and were asked to record our steps every day.  They handed out information about healthy food and life style.  The church nurses (yes some churches have nurses and they are an organized group) took blood pressures and weight.

Just recently ABC TV Nightly News featured a special on Hunger in America.  It is up on the ABCTV web now.

I will be featureing exerpts from this series as well as information from the UCC in future blogs.  Stay tuned!

Jeannette Brown
UCC Representative,

Mission ! Annonucement

I would like to share with you a very exciting project of the United Church of Christ that will take place next month.  I am doubly excited to tell you about it after that wonderful service that our youth presented two weeks ago  about their mission trip to Nicaragua.  They were wonderful.  They set a level that I hope we all can achieve.

Because on

Nov. 1-11, 2011...  I hope our church will be part of  ONE UNITED CHURCH on a shared mission for 11 powerful days to feed the hungry and confront food-related injustice. 

This is MISSION: 1

•  In 11 days, the United Church of Christ will collect more than 1 MILLION ITEMS

OF HEALTHY FOOD and other household items for local food banks and outreach

services.

Imagine 5,300 UCC churches converted into storehouses of meat and bread, fruits and vegetables, soap and diapers for neighbors in our local communities. Conjure an image of overflowing baskets of peanut butter, cereal, tuna and beans waiting for delivery to shelters and pantries. Envision hundreds of UCC members purchasing pounds of food online for the most vulnerable across our nation and world. 

This is MISSION: 1

I hope to  invite the directors of the local food banks to speak to us about the need.

Another aspect of Mission I is:

•  In 11 days, the United Church of Christ will offer more than 11,111 LETTERS to Congress asking our government to reform U.S. foreign assistance in a way that more effectively benefits hungry and poor people worldwide, helping to provide a major final push to Bread for the World's 2011 "Offering of Letters" campaign.

I will bring in sample letters and e-mail addresses of our congress  people so that you can send them.  For those without e-mail you can snail mail them.

Finally

·        In 11 days, the United Church of Christ will make an extra-special push to gather

 contributions of more than $111,111 DOLLARS for Neighbors in Need food-related ministries, offerings that will be shared for hunger-action purposes with  agencies of justice and compassion throughout the United States.

I am working with the Board of World Fellowship to see if some SOS funds can be used for this purpose.

So this is the charge to you.  What do you think you can do to reach this goal?

  How about 1,111 items of food, for starters? 

I hope that we can engage the community in this effort.  On   Nov 13 we will celebrate   bring a friend to church day.   WE  hope you can bring a friend and some food.

I will be blogging about this all this month and hope to enlist some volunteers in this effort.

In all my years as UCC Representative this is the biggest effort that the UCC has mounted and the first time I have asked  You to  help.

Jeannette Brown

UCC Representative

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