Dear friends,
I was away last Sunday at a four-day photo workshop in eastern Washington state. I had planned to be back with you tomorrow, but In addition to a camera full of photos, I also brought home a case of Covid. Thankfully, it has been a mild case. The lingering affect has been fatigue. I have spent most of the week sleeping. As of last night I was not testing positive, but out of an abundance of caution earlier this week I asked Stefanie Taylor to be back with you tomorrow. I plan to be back in the office on Monday.
One of the things we discussed at our last vestry meeting was giving you more information about the various outreach projects with which we are involved. Our new outreach chair Suzanne Johnson has this report about our efforts to help ease hunger in Sandy Springs.
With love,
Tricia
From Suzanne:
Summer can be a vulnerable time for children, especially those from low-income families. During the school year, many families rely on breakfasts and lunches at school to meet their children’s nutritional needs. Those crucial meals are not available during the summer holidays. Many children also face another kind of hunger during the summer—the lack of educational stimulation, usually most severely felt in a deterioration of their reading skills. Loss of learning over the summer accounts for about half of the achievement gap between low – and higher- income students.
St. Dunstan’s has responded in two ways to help children in our broader community. For many years, Emmaus House in partnership with the Children’s Defense Fund sponsors Freedom School, a six-week educational enrichment program focused on literacy. Serving in one of the poorest areas in the metro area, Freedom School has a strong track record of helping to lessen the backward slide academically that otherwise is typical for too many children. The vestry voted to contribute $2000 from the Outreach Budget for this important program.
Even closer to home, hunger is too often a real part of summer for children living very close to St. Dunstan’s. Surprisingly, half the elementary school children in Sandy Springs rely on school breakfasts and lunches for their nutrition. Summer vacation means more families need help with food. Year round St. Dunstan’s parishioners fill up the red wagon in our entranceway with non-perishable food which we collect for Solidarity’s feeding program. The need for those donations is even greater during the summer. This year Solidarity received a matching grant to encourage cash donations to help them reach their Summer of Abundance goal of $75,000 to enable the agency to buy perishable goods—fresh produce, protein, and dairy—that are important additions to nutrition. The vestry voted to send $3000 from our Outreach fund to be matched through the grant for perishable goods. That is enough to cover the cost of produce for about 4 1/2 days.