West Texans Bolster Hunger Programs
Episcopal News Service. March 15, 1984 [84051]
SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (DPS, Mar. 15) -- Episcopalians in the 60-county Diocese of West Texas, which stretches from the hill country to the Mexican border, will use their own hunger network to distribute food and financial aid to the economically depressed Rio Grande Valley.
The Rev. Canon C. Eugene Jennings, administrative assistant to Bishop Scott F. Bailey; and the Rev. Ted Knies, rector of Trinity Church, Pharr and dean of the Valley Convocation, announced after a strategy meeting of Episcopal churches in the Valley late in February that the church's existing distribution network will be used and expanded to funnel food and money to the needy from Rio Grande City to Brownsville. It is expected to handle more than a million pounds of food per year, they said.
Meanwhile, Jennings announced that with only one-third of the 91 congregations in the diocese reporting by the end of February, approximately $20,500 has been sent to diocesan headquarters for Valley relief as the result of special offerings taken Sunday, Feb. 19. Since some churches extended the period for this appeal, as much as three times that amount may eventually be available for work in the Valley. The special appeal had been designated by Bailey at the annual council of the diocese in McAllen Feb. 2-4.
Jennings sees conditions in the Valley as a continuing problem. "The situation in the Valley is persistent and permanent and deepened in the aftermath of the December freeze," he said, but noted "Episcopalians have been committed to large-scale help there for years."
Oldest of the relief projects is the "Brown Bag" program begun a decade ago by members of St. John's Church in McAllen when Jennings was rector there. In this fresh produce distribution system, which uses volunteer help, tons of vegetables donated by packing sheds are picked up in a truck purchased by the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief and distributed to as many as 60,000 persons up and down the Rio Grande. Jennings said the program handles an average of some 600,000 pounds of fresh food annually.
In nearby Pharr, the food pantry of Trinity Church warehouses canned goods and staples sent to it free by the H.E.B. Company and distributes food to the poor through satellite churches and agencies located in Valley communities. In full operation for only six months, the pantry will probably be handling about 400,000 pounds of food a year. Other projects are still in the developmental stage.
Related to these programs is Operation Grapefruit, managed by the Episcopal diocese's Hope for the Hungry Committee in San Antonio, which annually distributes more than 95,000 twenty-pound boxes of fruit to communities both in and outside the diocese as well as to Indian reservations in New Mexico and Arizona.
Jennings points to three key ingredients in these Episcopal Church enterprises. The first, he says, is the good will and genuine interest of packing shed operators, the H.E.B. Company, the Crest Fruit Company, and the personnel of these firms. "The contribution of the food industry is vital to the life of these programs," he says.
Second, the work is done by volunteers. "Valley churchmen," he says, "plus those blessed winter visitors and the recipients of the food themselves who want to come and work stand shoulder to shoulder pooling strength and talent which money couldn't buy as they make their contribution."
The third ingredient is the ecumenical aspect, he says. "Caring Christians have seen this as a task to be shared," Jennings continues, "and in the process they are drawn together at a level that has meaning. They not only work together, they pray together, feel each other's frustrations, share triumphs."