By Brett Hetherington*

Over St. Patrick’s Day weekend four East Ohio Conference churches partnered with Midwest Mission to pack meals that will feed 21,000 people in need. On Saturday, March 18, clergy and laity from Medina United Methodist Church (Canal District) assembled 2,000 meals and the next day clergy and laity from three North Coast District churches, Ridgewood United Methodist Church and Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Parma and Pleasant Hills United Methodist Church in Middleburg Heights worked together to assemble 1,500 meals.

“This is our third time packing bags for Midwest Mission,” shared Deanne Donoughe of Medina UMC. “We have a group here that pre-COVID would go to the Midwest Mission for years to do hands-on work. Coming out of COVID most of those people were elderly or retired, and it was brought to our attention that Midwest had ‘come to you’ missions like this rice packaging so we looked into what this entails and decided to give it a whirl. It was a huge success, the congregation loved it.”

Midwest Mission sent representatives to the churches that hosted the packing events to deliver the meal ingredients and packing equipment, direct the action, and answer questions from the volunteers. Church members worked in teams to fill the meal bags with the right amounts of rice, protein powder and dried vegetables, seal the bags, and box them for delivery.

Rev. Karen Wolcott, pastor of both Ridgewood UMC and Pleasant Hills UMC, shared that this is also the third year the congregations have been involved with the service ministry. “The first year Ridgewood hosted, the second year it was Ridgewood and Pleasant Hills and this year we invited Good Shepherd to join us.”

Ridgewood UMC became acquainted with Midwest Mission through lay member Claire Jencson. “Claire has a passion for missions and is the lead person for the United Women in Faith group here at Ridgewood. She was commissioned as one of the 2022 Global Ministries EarthKeepers for environmental stewardship, and Claire was really the driver behind this from Ridgewood. I think she was that important connection between the Conference and the local church,” said Wolcott.

The cost to produce each bag of meals is only $2, which is impressive considering each bag is designed to feed up to six people. “The combined youth program (of Ridgewood and Pleasant Hills) and their leaders held a Hunger-Thon in February and raised over $1,500 so that they could pay for an additional 500 rice bags. The youth had their own table at the event,” shared Wolcott. There were approximately 50 volunteers who packed bags at Ridgewood UMC.

Medina UMC shared a variety of volunteer ages as well. “We had people from as young as three or four years old all the way on up through the ages. It’s great for families, they can come and serve together. It’s all ages which makes it awesome,” shared Donoughe. Approximately 60 people volunteered for the mission event at Medina UMC.

The four churches across two districts partnering with Midwest Mission to feed those experiencing food insecurity is just the latest example across the East Ohio Conference of churches coming together in ministry.

The meals packaged that weekend in our East Ohio communities are expected to feed people in need in war-torn Ukraine or earthquake devastated Turkey or Syria.

The Conference Communications team would like to share other stories that highlight ways that each of us is answering the call of Bishop Tracy S. Malone to reach out to our communities in creative ways. Please e-mail your ministry story to EOC Executive Director of Communications Rick Wolcott at wolcott@eocumc.com.

* Brett Hetherington is the Communications specialist for the East Ohio Conference of The United Methodist Church.