Dear friends,

Yesterday afternoon I wrote to you that we had no food for delivery to the food pantry this week. The little red wagon and the narthex were bare. When I got to church this morning the outside bins were overflowing and when I left church this afternoon here’s what the narthex looked like. All of this accumulated in less than 24 hours. Thank you! Elise MacIntyre will once again have a car full to deliver tomorrow.
To get a sense of what a community effort these pantries are I am sharing with you today’s Facebook post from Jennifer Lott, who started the pantry in March.

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A week in the life of the Food Pantry:

Last Wednesday as the volunteers had a conversation about the sustainability of the food pantry this summer, Patricia Templeton and Elise from St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta dropped by to bring us another entire carload of groceries from their parishioners, as well as a really big check in a really small envelope from their church offering. Their donation covered the last three weeks of receipts I hadn’t turned in yet for reimbursement!

That same day, the sweetest girls came in to bring us bags of groceries they had collected from their neighborhood along with a baggie full of money. Their dad is a regular Samad customer and had told his daughter Ashley about the project and she and her friend Kinsley collected a carload full of groceries! Todd Barrett Erin Jennifer

Last Thursday, Samad Mediterranean Grill and Market owner Lesley JSmade homemade strawberry cake for our volunteers and now we have volunteers for LIFE (it was sooooo good). Not to be outdone, her husband Jamal made his famous fasoulia. It’s good to volunteer at their restaurant.

Last Friday, Ison Springs staff member Me’Lissa picked up her weekly delivery of groceries for five Ison families who have no transportation to get to our pantry. She doesn’t even live in Sandy Springs and she does this every week! She is an angel.

Sunday evening, after a long weekend of girls softball tournaments, friend Bernadette Tuazon asked if she could make all of the produce purchases to get us through Monday and she came through with a carload from Walmart!

Yesterday, Life Planner and Uber Organizer Beth Walsh rearranged the pantry to make room for today’s food bank delivery. And I found a sticky note from an old friend who had stopped by to make a donation and left a hello! Kristin Triplett Rader

Later Monday, as I was standing inside Publix planning which produce to buy to restock the pantry, loyal Samad customer, former total stranger and now good friend of mine Jason Smith texted me and told me he was standing inside a different Publix and wanted to contribute to the pantry. I gave him my shopping list and magically it all showed up at Samad last night.

This morning, Black Tie Moving Atlanta’s finest moving team Torin and Dylan arrived at the Atlanta community food bank at 7 AM to pick up the weekly delivery. The food bank was super busy this morning, but the guys faithfully got everything loaded and delivered to us a couple hours later than they planned.

Waiting for them at the Pantry were Team Walsh and Keeney who spent all day along with Sarah, Jessica, her awesome mom, and Lynn Marti Moore organizing the pantry and serving customers.

We continue to be so thankful for our relationships with Borden Dairy (Alex Valencia and Sandy Black are sooooooo nice!), Springsbottleshop, who has made our milk sponsorship possible by keeping so much of it in their cooler, Debbie Sonenshine and her parishioners at congregation b’nai torah B’nai Torah Atlanta who have made our food pantry possible through their donation, and of course our pantry hosts Lesley and Jamal.

We love you all and through these sponsorships and donations we hope to make it to August (and that August includes school starting back!)

This is the Gospel in action!

See you tonight at Compline.

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