July 4th Causes Decrease in Summer Lunch Donations

While thousands of people race off to the beach or the mountains for July 4th week, area children are still racing to the MUST Ministries vans to pick up their daily lunches.

“The problem is when people go on vacation, we receive fewer donated lunches,but we have the same number of hungry children,” according to Paula Rigsby, Seasonal Coordinator for MUST Ministries.

MUST is now serving 3,700 children a day in six counties and desperately needs people to donate lunches during the holiday week.

The children they serve don’t go on vacation, Rigsby explained, but the people who help them provide meals do. That situation creates a shortage of food that must be made up because the food has been promised to those children.

There are several ways to help. One way is to bring sandwiches and lunch items in and MUST can store them for use on days when there is a need. People can also make them fresh if they’re in town during the holiday week. A complete list of the daily menu and how to pack the lunches is on the MUST website. County coordinators are also listed and can tell each person where to bring the items.

“This is a great community outreach project for families and a meaningful way to get children involved in serving others,” Paula said. “We are also hoping Sunday School Classes, tennis teams, bridge clubs, neighborhood groups and other organizations will get involved.

Businesses can ask their employees to make sandwiches in the break room, she suggested, then pack the sack lunches.

It’s a daunting task to provide 3,700 sack lunches each day and it takes a lot of support and contributions, but the MUST team knows how generous people are in each community.

“We’ve been doing this for 17 summers and the people involved are so giving,” she said.