The church I am currently serving has a fundraiser each year called the Tomato Project Dinner. It’s pretty awesome. The children plant the seeds in the spring; we set up a station in the fellowship hall with grow lights and keep them for a month or two until the seeds have grown to the point where they are small tomato plants. We then give away free tomato plants, simply asking people to bring back some tomatoes when they are ripe, to make sauce. We then have a spaghetti dinner, charge money for tickets, and use the profits to support the local food pantry and the greater Chicago Food Depository. Last year we raised around $2000.   I had a meeting earlier today to meet with an area church representative and our two co-chairs to talk about partnering together on this project. This year I’m really hoping we can have an advocacy component because I believe it is in changing our structures and laws around hunger related issues that true change is really going to take place.

Also this past year I got on board with our local CROP Hunger Walk and ended up co-chairing the event. It was super fun and rewarding (we raised $10,000) but I also realized that I didn’t necessarily want to chair it. Tonight I have a Planning Team Meeting with some area church representatives who hopefully will step up to chair, or at least co-chair with me this year.

Anyway, I was just reflecting on how I had two meetings today on ending hunger, and thought it was funny, random, interesting and wanted to share.

How does hunger affect your community? What are you doing about it?