MIDDLEBURG \u2013\u00a0As a pastor, Andre Van Heerden gets excited when he preaches the\u00a0gospel. But he was especially excited as the\u00a0facilitator\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0Clay SafetyNet Alliance\u00a0meeting\u00a0on Thursday, Nov. 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The monthly meeting of stakeholders from faith-based, nonprofit and local government organizations, which shares resources to avoid duplication of services,\u00a0was especially critical this month\u00a0as thousands face food and financial insecurity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When one organization expressed a need, another chimed in with an answer. Moreover, everyone came away with a better understanding of the\u00a0urgency of the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The guest panel on Thursday included\u00a0Outreach Director Charlie Robinson of\u00a0The Church of the Way on Fleming Island,\u00a0Waste Not Want Not Executive Director Kathleen Spears,\u00a0J.P. Hall Children\u2019s Charities Board Member Bruce Butler, Executive Pastor Todd Jones of First Baptist\u00a0Church of\u00a0Middleburg\u00a0and Capt. Tim Scott of the Salvation Army of Clay County.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They all discussed the demands of the upcoming holidays and planned events to bring\u00a0relief to underserved communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It started with First Baptist Church of Middleburg\u2019s Feeding 5,000 event on Saturday, Nov. 22. It was a massive undertaking in which 1,000 boxes were filled with a turkey, boxes of instant mashed potatoes, stuffing and brownie mix,\u00a0and cans of green\u00a0beans and cranberry sauce. Each box had enough food to feed a family of five. The church distributed 1,000 boxes from its Middleburg parsonage and another 250 boxes from the Family Church of Green Cove in front of Clay High.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally, we have an\u00a0Agape\u00a0House\u00a0Ministry that meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week, and we have about 50 to 60 families that come in to receive\u00a0food,\u201d Jones said.\u00a0\u201cWe do that, giving them\u00a0an option\u00a0to come in only once a month. But with\u00a0Feeding\u00a05,000,\u00a0anyone can come. The first 1,000 families that come through receive a box, a box of food that includes ingredients to make an entire Thanksgiving meal, including the turkey.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Robinson\u2019s church organizes a dinner and shopping spree for \u201cunaccompanied\u201d teens. According to\u00a0Clay County District Schools, there are more than 500 homeless students, and The\u00a0Church of the Way reaches out to \u201cunaccompanied\u201d teens, treating them to a dinner prepared by the Metro\u00a0Diner. Afterward, they are given a $200 gift card and bused to a store for a shopping spree.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough our conversations with Clay County social workers, we identified that there was a gap,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cWe were missing a group of students, a population of students that were not being served, and those were our unaccompanied minors. In other terms, homeless teenagers. They may be bouncing from friend to friend. They may be with family members, but they\u00a0don’t\u00a0have a home, so\u00a0they’re\u00a0sleeping in their cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd these are teens\u00a0that otherwise would not have any type of holiday experience. They\u00a0wouldn’t\u00a0have\u00a0a Christmas. They\u00a0wouldn’t\u00a0have a Christmas meal.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Robinson said the church expects to\u00a0identify\u00a0and invite 70 students. The date and location\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0revealed because students\u00a0often\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want others to know\u00a0about\u00a0their situations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Butler reminded everyone about the enormous J.P. Hall Children\u2019s Charities Christmas Party on Dec. 13 at the Clay County Fairgrounds, where\u00a0more than 1,500 children received bags of new toys, and\u00a0more than 700 bicycles were distributed a year ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spears said Waste Not Want Not has been tasked\u00a0with\u00a0keeping food pantries stocked. The holidays and the recent government shutdown, which cut off SNAP benefits for more than a month, created unprecedented food demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur partners are asking for additional food,\u201d\u00a0Spears said. \u201cBecause\u00a0we’re\u00a0tracking it, because\u00a0we’re\u00a0asking our food donors to give us\u00a0additional\u00a0food, we have seen a significant increase.\u00a0We’re\u00a0assuming\u00a0it’s\u00a0a\u00a0result of the shutdowns and\u00a0SNAP.\u00a0There’s\u00a0definitely\u00a0a\u00a0huge\u00a0increase.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve\u00a0seen quite an uptick in the last three months.\u00a0Our pantry numbers\u00a0have\u00a0doubled.\u00a0There’s\u00a0a\u00a0100% increase in the folks that\u00a0we’re\u00a0seeing\u00a0now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scott said the Salvation Army has been so busy with its Thanksgiving meal distribution, Angel Tree\u00a0program\u00a0and Red\u00a0Kettle Campaign that it had to postpone its weekly music program until January.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may have noticed some people in front of stores ringing the bell,” he said. \u201cThat’s\u00a0how we pay for what we do, and so\u00a0that’s\u00a0our biggest fundraiser of the year. I also have a nifty QR code that you can donate. We are right now doing our Angel Tree program.\u00a0We’re\u00a0getting toys together because there will be between 500 and\u00a0600 children here in Clay\u00a0County. We\u00a0have a food pantry that runs every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0We’re\u00a0doing about 180 folks a week out of the food pantry.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Salvation Army also provides a free hot meal at every monthly Impact Clay Train stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the type of collaboration that really excites me,\u201d Van Heerden said.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0wonderful to see everyone working together like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIDDLEBURG \u2013\u00a0As a pastor, Andre Van Heerden gets excited when he preaches the\u00a0gospel. But he was especially excited…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":412538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,15024,15015,15023,15026,3188,15016,723,15021,7310,15020,15022,7648,15018,15017,15025,15019,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-412537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-argyle","10":"tag-clay-county","11":"tag-doctors-inlet","12":"tag-eagle-harbor","13":"tag-fl","14":"tag-fleming-island","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-green-cove-springs","17":"tag-jacksonville","18":"tag-keystone-heights","19":"tag-lake-asbury","20":"tag-margaret","21":"tag-middleburg","22":"tag-orange-park","23":"tag-pace-island","24":"tag-penney-farms","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115632211538422616","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}