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Simply Giving Food.

by | Feb 22, 2024 | Campaigns, Community Partners

“Flashback to a little over two years ago when our family was surviving on fast food drive-thru, ramen noodles and prepackaged snacks. Wendy’s 4 for $4 made it cheaper for our family of five to eat out rather than cook at home.

 

We joined Love Your Neighbor’s Life Skills Program in hopes of getting back on our feet financially and learning how to live within our means. From our intake meeting we learned that we would be earning groceries each week that we attended the program, which at the time wasn’t anything too exciting.

 

Little did we know the true effect that the weekly food from the food pantry would have on our family. We started the program in October of 2020. Our family wasn’t eating together. We would take orders, pick it up, pass it out, and everyone would go their separate ways.

 

Little by little a change was being made. It started with the milk and cereal before school and work. Then it was getting up a little earlier and making eggs and toast. We started with breakfast and it caused a domino effect onto the other meals of the day. We started cooking dinner more than eating out. We would even cook extra for lunch for the next day. We started finding new recipes and trying them out.

 

The food pantry offers such a wide variety of options that we spent very little on food. We would get back from work and get the kids from activities and cook together as a family to bring us closer together. We were eating together at the dinner table every night and takeout meals became a rarity.

 

“Not only did the food help bring our family together, it also helped us stabilize our lives financially. We took the money we were spending on take out and groceries and put that towards paying off debt, and once that was accomplished we were able to start making an emergency savings fund.”

 

Before this we were barely surviving paycheck to paycheck, so being able to put some money in savings was a completely new experience. Our family is better off because of the Love Your Neighbor Life Skills Program and the different types of support they are able to offer.”

 

You can make a huge difference NOW by donating to our Simply Give Campaign, in partnership with Hudsonville Meijer.

 

For every $10 you donate at checkout now through March 30th,  Hudsonville Meijer will MATCH your donation.

On March 2 & March 23 only, have your donation DOUBLE MATCHED.

Can’t make it to Meijer? We’ll go for you! Donate here

It’s quite incredible that all of this happens almost every day, and every week, by diligent volunteers who embody our diligence core value.

Not only is there a large variety of “things to do,” but also a deep investment by those who say yes to volunteering. Most volunteers serve weekly, some even daily, spending hundreds of hours donating the gift many of us hold most tightly – the gift of time.

In 2023 alone, 420 volunteers invested 49,120 hours – a value of $1.5 million! 

Our core mission is to love, serve and connect with dignity as we follow Jesus Christ closely, watching how he transforms lives – and we often highlight the transformation happening through our Life Skills Program.

What we often forget to highlight is that God is also transforming lives through volunteerism, giving community members purpose, friendship, creativity, and belonging. Here at Love, we believe everyone has something to offer.

If you are a volunteer, at Love Your Neighbor or elsewhere, thank you for this priceless gift!

Check out this volunteer video to learn more about volunteering at Love Your Neighbor.