11 Year Olds make a difference

If this is your first visit to the Food Rescue blog, go to March archives for the full story.

Check out what this 11 year old boy in Florida was able to accomplish.  http://abcnews.go.com/WN/PersonOfWeek/story?id=4123327

I  have often said that if we could have an influence on policies such as these being changed that it would accomplish more than a a million  lifetimes of giving.  We need to get this passed in Indiana as well, as well as across the country.  You can contact Governor Daniels at http://www.in.gov/gov/2310.htm .

Perhaps it is a longshot, but surely people of both parties could agree this is a good idea. 

God is on the move!

If this is your first visit to the FoodRescue.net blog, go to archives in March for a little history. 

In respect for all of your time, I am going to bullet point what God has been doing with Food Rescue in the five days since my last post.

• Big Apple Bagels and Paradise Bakery in Noblesville have come on board.
• Panera Bread in Greenwood was lost due to time commitments
• Two days later Tracie Hodge not only took that location, but found a food pantry ministry on the South side to receive it.  Yea Tracie! 
• DJ Humphrey made fliers and took them to neighborhoods and churches near Big Apple.
• Bill Frailey rescued my “Food Rescue” last night when I was wiped out.  Many others offered.  Thanks.
• I have spoken with 3 churches in Norfolk Virginia who called about Food Rescue.  After explaining the scope, I am still awaiting responses from their initial inquiries.
• Brad Schafer is trying to round up a few volunteers for a Panera in Lima Ohio on Fridays and Saturdays.
• Bryndon has been faithful to try to get the word out about the need for volunteers, and my phone rang at 7:30 A.M. on Thursday morning.  It was Ann Marie Tiernon wtih WTHR 13 in Indy, saying she had between 10-12 available to do a story.
• The story ran that evening and at Noon the next day, and we have had around 30 inqurires.
• David and Luke Baldwin had the video posted on the website in 24 hours.
• When shooting the story, I met Betsy Block, who is intimately involved with Third Phase and offered ways in which she could assist mobilizing more people to help. 

You are a beautiful group of people and you are accomplishing a very special thing.   Our ability to communicate with one another through the Internet and email has allowed Food Rescue to expand and reach people quickly without bogging everyone down with organiztional meetings etc.  that sometimes prevent reaching the goals everyone wants to accomplish.  I’m pretty sure I will never meet everyone involved with Food Rescue, however, I thank Him for each and every one of you. 

John Williamson

 

 

Another Food Rescue Story

If this is your first time to the Food Rescue Blog, check out March archives for more details. 

Here is a story from a Food Rescue driver.

My family started rescuing food about 4 months ago.  I had a friend I wanted to become involved, but he had various conflicts that kept him from participating.  One evening a few months ago, I asked him to go to the Keystone location with me, just to experience it and see how it all works.  He agreed to go with me a few months ago, and we had not discussed it since.

 

A few nights ago my phone rang, and someone had a conflict and was unable to pick up at Keystone and I was asked to fill in.  I could not, but guess who was sitting across the table from me? Yes, it was my friend who I have dinner with only a few times a year who went to the Keystone location with me a few months prior, and he agreed to go on a “solo” food rescue that evening

 

I really wanted my friend to become involved in this project in my own way and within my time frame, however, someones cancellation at just the right time at just the right location resulted in an opportunity for my friend to experience giving in a meaningful way.  So, if you are unable to make your pick up, know that your cancellation might be more than just a conflict or a scheduling error, it may be somebody elses divine appointment.

Dave Allen

Big Day at Food Rescue

If this is your first visit to the FoodRescue.net blog, March archives briefly gives some meaningful background on this blog.

So much to say about today.  A friend of mine, D.J. Humphrey walked into Big Apple Bagels in Fishers and basically found out they were throwing all of their remaining bagels away each day at the end of the day, and the owner agreed to let him on behalf of the Heritage Classic Foundation and FoodRescue.net begin to take them to Third Phase when he could.   That pick up is at 4:55 P.M. so it might fit some peoples schedules better.  From the Noblesville area, that would be less than a 45 minute commitment. 

Bryndon Preston began discussions with the new Paradise Cafe in Noblesville/Saxony and they agreed to give some of their donations to Food Rescue.  Stay tuned for more on both of these opportunities.  The best part is Bryndon agreed to pick up all of the days they give us until volunteers come in.

Many people stepped up today to fill in for one of our drivers that was injured.  Thanks!

With these new potential additions it is going to require more servants, so pray that God would provide new people to encounter Him during these upcoming food rescues.

 

 

 

 

 

Food Rescue in Norfolk

If this is your first visit to the FoodRescue.net blog, March archives briefly gives some meaningful background on this blog.

I spoke with a member of a church in Norfolk Virginia this evening, and she is going to be looking into starting a food rescue chapter in Norfolk.  Please pray that God would open the doors in her area and with her contacts.  Her name is Nancy.  There are about 50 time slots in her area where the Paneras in her area are currently having to throw the bread away because they have not found anybody to pick it up.  That’s about $15,000 retail monthly, but equally as important it represents 50 opportunities each month for individuals to serve or families to serve together.

 

 

Extend Hospitality to Strangers Romans 12:13

“To welcome the stranger is to acknowledge him as a human
being made in God’s image; it is to treat her as one of equal worth
with ourselves – indeed, as one who may teach us something out of
the richness of experiences different from our own.”

Anna Maria Pineda

Last night I heard a message regarding hospitality, and it struck me that our over 100 volunteers at food rescue are practicing this exhortation in Romans.  If you look at the quote from Anna Maria Pineda, perhaps there is more than meets the eye to delivering food to those in need. 

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Field of Dreams”.  In the movie, the ficitional Horace Mann says,

People will come Ray, People will most definitely come. They will come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They will turn into your driveway, not knowing for sure why they are doing it. They will arrive at your door as innocent as children longing for the past. “ Of course we won’t mind if you look around ,” you’ll say. “ It’s only twenty dollars a person .” And they will pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack.

Although the character was referring to the magical power of baseball, the point about peace is completely accurate.  As we distance ourselves from people that have been “marginalized”, a.k.a. people that are not like us, we move away from God’s purpose for our very existence, which is to be in relationship with Him.  As we draw closer to Him, we find Him exactly where He said He would be, and we long to go where He is, in the same way Horace Mann describes the longing people will feel to go to a baseball field in Iowa. 

As we share our stories with others, they will long to become part of the story.  People will come.  People will most definitely come.  And as they do, people will begin to experience God in a fresh way as we greet with hospitality those whose life experiences are different than our own.

Good People Argue

If this is your first vist to the FoodRescue.net blog, March archives briefly gives some meaningful background on this blog.

“He who gives to the poor lends to God who gives back a double
portion.”  Proverbs 19:17

A good friend sent me this verse today.  Some good people think it means a monetary blessing literally, others would say it means a double portion of Gods mercy, grace, and peace.  The time spent debating it is wasteful.  As long as our motives are pure, and we are not treating God as an ATM, then we shall be blessed for serving the poor.  I’ll let God handle the specifics of it.   I’m sure if he let me choose the “type” of blessing I wanted I’d mess it up anyway!

 

 

 

 

Are You Living Dangerously?

How easily Jesus is forgotten, amidst the comfort of our lives.  The flames become a flicker, and our faith a brilliant disguise.  Sundays have become a holiday, they’re an empty exercise.  And the cost of real devotion, seems so foreign to our eyes.

Oh to gladly risk it all.  To be faithful to His call.  Abandoned to grace, but anchored in His love.  Living dangerously, in the hands of God. 

Theres safety in complacency, but God is calling us out of our comfort zone to live a life of complete surrender to the Cross.  To live dangerously is not to live recklessly, but righteously, and it is because of God’s radical grace for us that we can risk living a life of complete surrender to the Cross. The eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose hearts are completely His. 

Oh to gladly risk it all.  To be faithful to His call.  Abandoned to grace, but anchored in His love.  Living dangerously, in the hands of God.  

Steve Camp “Living Dangerously”.

3 Stores in Washington D.C.

This evening I found out they throw their food away at 3 locations in Wahsington D.C. EVERY NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Thats 90 foodrescues waiting to happen each month, which is about $360,000 retail per year.  They would give it to the Heritage Classic Foundation if I could find someone to go get it.

 

 

Shade for the Children

My mother passed away suddenly before my children were born 13 years ago.  Before then, I was considered an emotional person, perfectly capable of crying.  For whatever reason or another, tears have not easily fallen for me since then.  I remember crying for my best friend a few years after he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, but even that took a few years.  I mention it because I pulled over today in tears listening to a song written by a man named Steve Camp that influenced me when I was younger.  I’m going to post the lyrics and make a brief comment on why it struck me today.

LYRICS:

You came into our home one Spring, A helpless bundle of joy:  The innocence of a young one, Love employs.  Theres a tenderness in your heart, Your mother’s sweetness in your soul.  And a fire from your father, To burn against the cold.  The first time you called me daddy, my heart leaped though the sky, Then I was struck by the reality of what laid before my eyes, Oh Lord I cried, I wanna be……

Shade for the children, A shelter from the storm.  To be a place where they can grow.  In the ways of the Lord.  To train up my child, to live a pure and godly life.  Through the struggles and fears, Dreams and tears of every day, to be shade for the children.

And if you ever stray, Know that we have prayed the Lord would bring you home.  And with every step you take, You’ll discover, You were never alone, and when you have grown I pray you’ll be shade for the children.

COMMENTS:  Introducing my children to experiences with the Living God is a way of providing them shade in the future when life gets hot.  When our children are very young, they think Mom and Dad are the equivalent of superheroes.  When I dropped the food off to Third Phase last week, the women inside basically confirmed to my daughter the notion that her Dad was a superhero, and she just beamed as bright as any light you can imagine as they were describing how they felt about her daddy.  The fact that I am not will be our little secret until she figures it out, so don’t tell her otherwise. 

Someday, there may come a time that she may not think her daddy is too swift, but I can rest secure in the knowledge that encounters with God and His heart at a young age will give her more “shade” than I could ever hope to provide for her, and that His mighty yet gracious hand will guide her in the times when she may not want my help or advice.   

 

 

 

Why only once a month?

A lot of Foodrescue.net volunteers would serve once a week without batting an eye.  Why not utilize that willingness instead of being determined to only allow once a month service?

1)  “The burn out factor”.  We don’t have to worry about drop off.  Nobody has ever opted out.  I’m sure it will happen, but it is easier to “expand or enhance” when you do not have to worry about “replacing”.

2)  More importantly, the people who feel passionately are forced to share about it with others if it is ever to be “expanded or enhanced”. 

There are so many opportunites to have an encounter with God in serving those in need, it would be a crime if only the few that “get it” were the only ones allowed to experience it.  It forces everyone to tell their story, and we know and trust God to this day because of the fatihfullness of those who went before us to tell their stories.   If we are left with the blessing of the service only, we miss our role in God’s design to “draw all men unto Him.” 

As a matter of fact, if I were to design a plan to defeat God’s people it would start with convincing them that God is to be “experienced” only,  instead of “shared”.  People at FoodRescue.net have shared their stories, and as they continue to share, the impact on our community, nation, and world will continue to grow.

What is a “Virtual Community?”

I think it was Mr. Rodgers that used to sing, “Who are the people in you neighborhood…..”  Ah, I can hear the tune now.  Anyway, the Worldwide Web allows us to take the theme of Mr. Rodgers neighborhood/community, and build/grow it larger and quicker than anybody in his generation could have ever understood at the time. 

 Of course after I posted this I find out how bad my memory is and that it was actually Sesame Street and Kermit the frog, but really the point remains the same.

Communities share common goals and visions, and those that work together on those goals become the strongest.    A virtual community is what foodrescue.net is forming, with the common goal of simply getting food in our country that is currently being thrown away into the hands of people in need, while discovering a deeper relationship with God as we serve.

As more people join the community through the weblog, the word will spread, and there will be laborers brought forward to put a dent in the waste all around the country.  As people begin to see that spreading the word is as valuable as picking up the food if not more valuable, the exposure to what we are doing will grow.  How?  The same way a link moves it’s way up a search engine.  The frequency of the views and the # of participants makes it impossible to ignore.  It’s way too simple to work, but it does.

My friend Steve who commented earlier in another post easily has over a million people in his community.  They share the same values, and they are committed to it.  What would happen if we could have a million people in our community?  Maybe that’s too small for this.  I don’t know, but I do know that a blog can go from 5 views to 25 to 50 to 70 in  4 days, because that is what this one has done.  Thanks for being a part of the community, sharing it with others, and please participate in the community by sharing your story.  God uses stories in amazingly powerful ways, and yours is VERY important.    Don’t “hide it under a bushel”.

If we can’t do this, what can we do?

I had a meeting with someone a few months ago who was educating me on his experience with food waste in our country.  He said, “John, you will never be able to find more volunteers than available food.”  I kind of dismissed him, because at the time I had a lot of people interested in participating.  But as the opportunities to pick up food became available, I had to stop seeking the food because he was exactly right.  I went through a period of frustration and anger at not being able to “keep up” with the food if you will.  I kept asking myself, “if we can’t do this, what can we do?”

At first I thought the way to go was simply to encourage everybody to heed the words of the Lord when he said, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels.”………”For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat….”

While this is an important truth in the Bible, it can lead to an unintended consequence of serving out of guilt for some.  At first, I could have cared less if that were the case, as long as people served.   I reasoned that David felt plenty guilty when conftronted by Nathan with his adulteress behavior with Bathsheba, and his murderous actions with her husband Uriah.  I reasoned that David changed because he felt guilty.  However, what David realized was that he was out of relationship with his Heavenly Father, completely out of His purpose for Davids’ life, and it was David’s sincere return to His relationship with God that produced the change in his life, not the guilt of his sin.  The realization of guilt wouldn’t have changed anything by itself.

As a group of believers, we ought to be able to go get free food and take it to people in need.  I suppose we are guilty of not being able to complete this task that lines up so closely with what we say we believe, however, we will never fulfill what God has in store for us until we hunger to have an authentic encounter with Him.  Until our relationship with Him leads us to find His heart, our guilt will lead to a few time slots being filled and put some food into food banks, but it will not produce real change in our lives, or the lives of the people in need we are attempting to serve.

Charlotte NC Opportunities

There is about $20,000 of food being thrown in the trash monthly near Charlotte NC that Panera will give the Heritage Classic Foundation and FoodRescue.net if anybody has friends or relatives that would like to participate in that area to deliver to a food bank or people in need, and there are a couple of nights in Brownsburg Indiana available as well. 

 Let me know.

March 31st Food Rescue Heroes: The Bukowski Family

My phone rang last night after 9:00 P.M., and it was a manager from Panera Bread telling me another organization had failed to pick up, so they turned to foodrescue.net to see if we would take it.  I was up to my eyeballs in a project, so I called my friend Bryndon, who was up to his eyeballs in the food he was rescuing at the Keystone Panera and Paradise Bakery.  He called his friends Dave and Patty Bukowski, and they got out of bed to go take the bounty to Third Phase.  You have to love “Unscheduled Food Rescues!”  The Bukowskis are an example to us all!