Missional Food Pantry Approach: Wrap Around Services

FHL’s recent Table Talk featured learning how we can serve our recipients and volunteers even deeper through “No Cost” benefits (D-SNP) for the dual card holders – Medicare and Medicaid. “Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans (D–SNPs) enroll beneficiaries are entitled to both Medicare (Title XVIII) and Medical Assistance from a State Plan under Title XIX (Medicaid), and offer the opportunity of enhanced benefits by combining those available through Medicare and Medicaid.” (Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services)

Several pantry recipients have already signed up at different FHL MFP and are now enjoying the benefits. This is another way of providing wrap around services to your pantry recipients. And FHL Table Talks serve to help the community look into and discuss the benefits of a number of existing options for helping our clients.

After months of careful planning, methodical preparation, intercessions and intense training, Feed My Sheep Missional Food Pantry is ready for  Graduation and Certification!

Congratulations, Feed My Sheep! Greater things are yet to come!

We are looking forward to the Grand Opening of Feed My Sheep missional food pantry on Wednesday, April 10 at 6pm.

Are you interested in obtaining a missional food pantry certification for your food pantry?  Contact FHL Community by phone at: 317-572-5793 or email: info@fhlinternational.org .  FHL Missional Food Pantry Training School uses the FHL Missonal Food Pantry Training Manual to train students.

You can sign up to help Feed My Sheep under our April Volunteer Opportunities.

FHL was at the Missional Food Pantry Community Prayer Walk on a beautiful day. It was a blessing to visit the FHL Community Prayer training for Cross Church and we joined them for their Community Prayer Walk. We prayed for the residents, gas stations, restaurant/bar, and other local businesses.

Other congregations in the area were invited to join in on the prayer walk. The purpose of FHL community prayer walks are to help the missional food pantry in training pray for their future clients and the area but also to assess the area for its needs and the culture.

Community prayer walks are part of the missional food pantry training approach and are done before the launch of the new missional food pantry and before their graduation.

Missional food pantry training is reaching a number of existing food pantries and newer food pantries searching for ways to to give spiritual food to their clients. God has favored FHL Community  to speak on the subject “Evangelism at Food Pantries” at the IndyHunger Network Summit this Thursday at Light of the World Christian Church. Merlin Gonzales is one of the Workshop presenters at the 12:25 breakout session.

FHL Community is also expanding its reach with Missional Food Pantry Conferences this summer.  Below are just a few of the highlights of what FHL is doing and will be doing this summer.

One missional food pantry early Summer Conference is now in the planning stage. Looking forward to our partnership with Pastor Tim and the Freedom Church in Noblesville, In.

FHL is also finalizing an missional food pantry Conference for Divine Direction Christian Church on E. 46th Street in Indianapolis.

Inspiring and dedicated followers of Christ endured the cold weather for the FHL Missional Food Pantry On-The-Job Training Conference. So proud of the two new partnering churches – University UMC and Cross Church. Building Missional Communities, neighborhood to neighborhood.

Today we welcomed another one of our newer soon-to-be launched Missional Food Pantries, the Cross Church, for OJT on our Distribution Day. They were a great help in spite of the freezing temperatures. Thank You for all the MFP Leaders and Volunteers who come with a smile and heart to serve without grumbling in this inclement weather, and also help keep me persevering in site of my own challenges. Thank You again to Pastor Dr. Wayne Smith for allowing us to use their space for our loadouts at University United Methodist Church.  Thank you also to Thank You BBQ Heaven for the use of their truck!

It is all about people; not about food. Since the inception of food pantries a few decades ago, we thought the answer to hunger is food. Ironic as it is, in the first world country like the USA, it’s not the lack of food but lack of relationships, knowing who is our neighbor and establishing trust in our neighborhoods. Food pantries are supposed to serve the people not the system. It is about the “end-user” as our technology culture puts it.

Here’s an article that will change the way you see food pantries – Why Ford hired a Furniture Maker as their CEO

UX design thinking – meaning User-Experience is what matters. In other words, we can put more food in food pantries or we can even fill the parking lots with trucks containing free food and the demand will just continue to grow. Why? Because in our intention to help others, our system is actually hurting them. Somehow, we created a system where people saw gaps to abuse it and thought that it’s ok because we continue to do the same system over and over again expecting different results. It seems like we created bigger problems than hunger.

It is time to change our mindset that there are better ways to address hunger beyond giving a bag of food. Instead of putting a Band-Aid on the problem, let’s look at the root causes of hunger and tackle them one at a time while providing “emergency” food assistance.

From You Feed Them Missional Food Pantry at Barnes United Methodist Church…

To God be the Glory! We served 53 (10 were first time visitors) with an average of 10 bags of groceries each, that’s 152 lives touched with 530 bags of groceries!! There were 8 Salvations! 1 Baptism! 1 Deliverance! 1 Re-Dedication, and 1 Healing! We had 22 phenomenal Volunteers! Thank You to our partner Second Helpings for the 100 Awesome variety of Sandwiches, our guests loved them! Also, Thank You to our two Vendors that came to sign up clients to help them: Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Oak Street Health.

From the Missional Food Pantry at Mount Nebo Baptists Missionary Church..

Blessed Day At Our Missional Food Pantry on Sat.We Touch 134 Lives,One Salvation,Pass Out 350 Bags Of Food.  Unto Him🙏

From Rebuilding the Village Missional Food Pantry at Nu Corinthian Baptist Church…

Another amazing night – Neighborhood to neighborhood, last night was in the Northwest Indy. Below are testimonials and pictures of the actual God moment. Hallelujah!  The volunteers here at “Rebuilding The Village” Missional Food Pantry at #NUCBC are still just as compassionate and determined to serve their Community physically and spiritually as they were when we, #FHLIndy, first trained them for this ministry. HALLELUH! 🕊😇 At the end of each MFP night, they ALL come together to share God’s glory through the night and close in prayer. One return guest’s testimony was that she got a job! Amen! 💜 (2.27.19) Their #MFP is every 4th Wednesday, 6-7:30pm.

 

What has FHL Missional Food Pantry training and support made possible with these food pantries?

It’s amazing how a simple “Missional” food pantry could change the spiritual atmosphere of a neighborhood. To find out more about this simple but powerful ministry that is invading our neighborhoods, contact info@fhlinternational.org or call 317-975-1709 or 317-572-5793

Highlights from the University UMC Conference: The practical and the spiritual aspects of FHL Community’s Missional Food Pantry Training approach. The goodness and glory of God covered the entire Conference last Saturday!

FEEDING the LINE or ENDING the LINE?

Some eye-opening facts from Reinvestment Fund, 2016…

Many food bank clients are food insecure because of under- and unemployment:
• 70% percent of all adult pantry clients are unemployed.
• 33% percent of unemployed adult pantry clients are recurrent pantry clients.
• 29% of adult pantry clients who are employed full time are recurrent pantry clients.
• 32% of adult pantry clients who are employed part time are recurrent pantry clients.
• The median monthly household income of food bank clients is $927 and the median annual household
income is $9,175.20
Source: Feeding America, “Hunger in America,” p. 123 and 127

The FHL Community Missional Food Pantry Training Center aims to “Shorten the Line” with our missional food pantry Training approach.  If you would like to learn more, please join our Table Talks