Alliviating hunger in Ohio with BACM director Cathie Finn, client Marsha, and Barberton outreach pastor Ruthellen Moore.—photo by Don N. Moore

Help Available to Feed Your Hungry

Community of Christ members and friends can team to relieve hunger with the Alan Shawn Feinstein Foundation. This past year, nearly 30 Community of Christ congregations partnered with their communities to raise $400,000 for local hunger programs alongside the Feinstein Foundation of Rhode Island. Since 1991, Alan Feinstein has divided $1 million annually among hunger-fighting agencies by adding his contributions to yours.

“We have two missions. One is school programs encouraging Rhode Island youngsters to do good deeds. The other is national hunger relief,” explained Alan Shawn Feinstein, founder of the Feinstein Foundation. “Each year, we give away one million dollars to anti-hunger agencies and houses of worship of all stripes.”

“Every year, an e-mail goes across my computer about the Feinstein Million Dollar Food Challenge,” said Ruthellen Moore, Barberton, Ohio, Community of Christ outreach pastor. “But collecting food for two months seemed like a lot of work. This year I made it a matter of prayer.”
Moore approached the Barberton Area Community Ministries (BACM) director, Cathie Finn, about rallying local churches and schools to collect food and money. The BACM pantry helped feed 9,478 people in 2006, more than a third of whom were children.

“We made personal contacts and mailed invitations to create community together in the food challenge among every church in Barberton,” recalled Moore. “We picked up over 140 bags of food collected by teachers and students. Our own congregation brought in 51 bags of food and donated $400.”

Other Barberton churches and schools added to the effort. The Feinstein Foundation supplemented Ohio donations from Rhode Island.
“The final blessing of a community coming together was $52,196.74,” said Moore. “Five churches that had never participated in the food bank did so and continue to bring nonperishables into the pantry. From a perspective bigger than dollars and food, we saw God bring a community together and bring peace and justice and healing and reconciliation in a million different ways.”

Funding from Feinstein also Impacts the Hungry in Canada
“We had a hunger awareness activity as part of our Feinstein challenge,” said Lorna Webster of Ottawa, Ontario. “This was especially for younger children and families to learn about hunger and how we are so blessed in this part of the world. Children and adults worked together to make a bridge in two pieces that were then joined into one. The Ottawa Community of Christ congregation’s hunger awareness activity attracted more than 35 people who in turn gathered more donations of food and money.

These are only a couple examples of the many ministries seeking to end hunger with the assistance of Alan Shawn Feinstein. The struggle continues to ensure that everyone has enough to eat.

“We’re the wealthiest country in the world and we have more hunger and less assistance from the government than any other industrialized country,” lamented Feinstein.

“Yet good people in this country step forward to help the needy and I’ve been fortunate to use our $1 million giveaway each year as a fund-raising spur for agencies battling hunger. We helped raise $148 million this past year for over 1,700 participating agencies and houses of worship. It’s become the most successful grassroots effort ever to fight hunger.”

“It’s a touch of Zion. I believe that when our people see a need, they extend themselves,” said Carter. “That is what a caring community of Christ does. I encourage everyone to look around themselves. With an open heart and open eyes you will see needs around you, and you can help.”

Contact Joyce Carter at feinsteinchallenge@CofChrist.org if your congregation wants to participate in the Feinstein Challenge. Learn more about the Feinstein Foundation at www.feinsteinfoundtion.org.

—Dirk Ellingson reporting