Food Day Stirs Varied Response
Episcopal News Service. November 15, 1984 [84226]
NEW YORK (DPS, Nov. 15) -- World Food Day, sponsored by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, was celebrated around the world on Oct. 16. Around the nation, Episcopal parishes -- spurred on by a call from Presiding Bishop John M. Allin -- responded in a variety of ways.
According to Dr. David Crean, staff officer for hunger at the Episcopal Church Center, his office prepared and mailed out 1,200 packets of information and materials on World Food Day. He adds, however, "This underestimates the actual number used, as many dioceses photocopied the materials for parish use. The Dioceses of Central New York, West Texas, and Oregon, for example, had parish-wide mailings. In all, I estimate we reached some 2,500-3,000 parishes."
Elsewhere, there were different approaches. Taking advantage of the pre-election timing of the day, the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania held a press conference in Harrisburg, the state's capital, at which a statement was generated calling on people to examine candidates' commitments to alleviate hunger. In part, it read: "In the midst of all the debate on what are seen as the more important issues, hunger and the plight of hungry people in our country cannot be forgotten. Hunger is a moral issue, not just for some, not just for the hungry, but for all Americans, individually and as a nation."
As its contribution to the day, the Diocese of Washington held an interfaith service at the National Cathedral and sponsored a hunger workshop led by the Rev. Canon Lloyd Casson.
On the parish level, a church in the Diocese of Lexington took up a collection for the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief's hunger fund on the Sunday preceding World Food Day and had its largest collection ever: $645. A parish in Oregon had a similar experience, and the total gain of the day for the Fund is still being evaluated.
In some ways the most wide-reaching diocesan response came from Wyoming, where Oct. 14 was the Sunday of its diocesan convention. Services in Wyoming's Episcopal parishes were conducted by lay readers that day, and a Food Day-related sermon prepared by the Rev. Daphne Grimes, a member of the diocesan hunger committee, was delivered.