One of the concerns of all our churches during this pandemic has been finding funds to continue discipleship in the community, whilst ensuring our churches stay viable. The ladies of the Fund-Raising committee at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Antigonish decided in October to make take-out Meals in a Bun to solve both problems. There was certainly a dash of the Holy Spirit in this idea as not only were the meals a great success in the Community, but the profit made was far more than what was expected. “We found that our small church congregation was very generous in donating supplies for the meals,” said Sharron Harling, Chair of the group, “but the customers who purchased our meals were also very generous in their tips! This left us with much more money than we thought we would raise, and so our committee decided some of this had to go back into areas of need in our community.” The group came up with the idea of making up Care Bags containing some personal care items, but also mitts, hats, scarves, food, fun items and treats. They also asked the local Community Health Board if they could partner with them and were given enough money to add a $10 Tim’s gift card into every bag. Some items were purchased by the group and the generosity of the Church congregation, who supplied all the warming items and a large majority of items for personal care, enabled a grand total of 52 bags to be made up. “Each bag contained the Tim’s card and a short prayer and Bible quotation.” said Harling, “but we did not name our Church on the note, as we wished this to be a totally anonymous gift.” Bags were taken to various organisations for distribution, tailoring each set of bags to the work of each group so they would be easy to give away.
The Take-out meals will continue in February with a Meal in a Bowl featuring seafood chowder and a valentine themed dessert. “The committee felt this was the right way to share our profit and to care for our community at the same time,” continued Harling, “and we hope that this Care Bag distribution may be revisited later in the year.”
