For children who rely on their school’s breakfast and lunch as their main meals of the day, a week of spring break holiday can feel more like a week of spring break hunger.
That’s why Lou Ann Raughton, Community of Hope, Inc. (COH) director, started “Feed the Children” four years ago.
“I felt the Lord [lay] it on my heart for churches to provide food and prepare bags of food for these children so they can have those two meals they’re missing (during the break),” said Raughton, who began serving in her position in 2007.
The Montgomery-based ministry provides tutoring for children in the area, serves as a food pantry, provides furniture and clothing for low-income families and hosts evangelistic block parties among other events year-round.
Ongoing partnership
Ken May, director of missions for Montgomery Baptist Association, said the association has been involved with COH since its inception in 2000 when Neal Hughes, then an associational pastor and now a North American Mission Board missionary, started Project Hope. Hughes later formed the 501c3 non-profit known as COH.
May said the association provides COH with a grant from its mission/church extension funds each month and that many of the volunteers who serve frequently at COH are members of Montgomery Association churches.
This year volunteers from Dalraida Baptist Church; Ezekiel Academy; Eastmont Baptist Church; Fairview United Methodist Church; and Alabama Christian Academy, all in Montgomery, and Pike Road Baptist Church, along with many individuals, either donated money or goods or helped pack more than 500 bags for children in the area, many of whom participate in COH’s tutoring ministry. Each bag contained a Pop-Tart, a snack, soup and a drink.
Every morning at 9 during the break, March 23–27, Raughton and a handful of volunteers gathered at the playground of an apartment complex in Montgomery to hand out the bags. Most of the families in the area are part of the Mixtec people group, Raughton said, which makes it vital to have Spanish-speaking volunteers like Sarah Rodriguez and the Garcia family. Although the Mixtec people speak the Mixtec language, many of the apartment residents also speak Spanish.
At the start of the week the children were slow to get up and come out to the playground to get their bags, just like in years past, said Raughton, who is a member of Dalraida Baptist. But by the end of the week they were out and waiting for the volunteers to arrive, she said. The parents and families that live in the complex “were grateful to be thought of,” Raughton said.
Pulling from 1 Peter 5:7, this year’s “Feed the Children” mission is to “share God’s love and to show the children and families that God cares for them,” Raughton said.
Ultimately “Feed the Children” is much more than handing out bags
of food, she emphasized.
“It’s a way that we can build an ongoing relationship with the families. We try to reach out and meet their physical needs and invite them to our ministry center. We want to meet their physical needs so that we can also share Jesus Christ with them. That’s our end goal.”
Community of Hope is located at 2403 East South Boulevard, Montgomery. For more information about the ministry or to volunteer, call 334-235-2634.
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