Dear friends of the Presbyterian Pantry,

We were blessed with a drive-through plan to be able to continue providing food for the hungry during the pandemic. Unfortunately, we have not come up with such a plan for our traditional Big Turkey Day at the pantry. We feel it is unsafe to have 150+ people and volunteers gathered in one spot. Our plan is to distribute similar bags and turkeys to the 30 – 40 people we typically have on Tuesdays on November, 3, 10, and 17.  We would like to give turkeys, pies, and all the trimmings to each family that comes to the pantry. We will be closed the week of Thanksgiving and will post signs and distribute leaflets during October.

We ask that individual church members donate money to help us prepare safely. Please give as you feel led and add a little more to it. Perhaps even your children could be encouraged to donate a little to have that participation-in-giving opportunity. With your donations, each week we will order and pick up the following:

Turkeys, Whole Chickens, and Pies.

We are also asking Sunday School Classes to volunteer to take on providing 50-75 boxes/cans of several items. We will be contacting Sunday School teachers very soon to allow adequate time to get items to us by the end of October.

We are asking that you collect the items in your Sunday School classes during the month of October and deliver them in bulk by no later than October 28th. Because we must be able to plan and prepare our bags prior to each Tuesday in November, we need the contributions by no later than October 28th. Please no dropping off a bag or two at a time.

The pantry will buy the following:

Green Beans, Corn, and Canned Fruit

Flour, Sugar, Coffee, Tea

Thank you in advance for your above and beyond donations. Though this may not give us the joy of the “old way” we hope we can continue this tradition of helping our clients to have a great Thanksgiving Holiday.

The Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Shoebox will be needing the following donations:

comb, hairbrush, washcloth, bar of soap (packaged or in a container), adhesive bandages, reusable plastic containers, cup, water bottles, plate, bowl, bracelet, necklace, hair bows, sunglasses, blanket

school supplies (crayons, pencils, pens, paper, rulers, etc.)

There were 149 shoeboxes sent out from FCPC last year.  Samaritan’s Purse sent to 125 different countries. Twenty-five of those countries could not be revealed publicly. The reach of the gospel in just one shoebox can be to a complete family and all of the neighbors surrounding that one child.  One thousand churches were established in an equal number of villages from shoeboxes.  Do not under estimate God’s use of the item you donate to this mission.