For nine weeks this summer Bethany will be a host site for MUST MINISTRIES Summer Lunch program. This program will feed many thousands of school aged children meals over the summer school break. Keep reading to see how it will work.
Ready to Sign Up?
Contact Marsha Kostus at marshakostus@verizon.net
What Can YOU do to help?
- First of all PRAY!
- You can go the store and get specific items to make up a KIDS’ KIT or two or three or anything that will help make the Kids’ Kits.
- You can volunteer too at Bethany from 10 to 2 and serve on a Sunday Get Ready Day or a Wednesday Distribution Day as a CHECKER/PACKER to help hand out Kits and interact with the families who come to our church.
- You can volunteer as a Driver/Rider to take prepared Kid’s Kits to the designated areas. You have to register with MUST MINISTRIES and have a background check to do this job. Drivers/Riders will have personal engagement with the children being served. This is a MUST MINISTRIES requirement.
- You can give money to Bethany for purchasing the items needed to make the Kids’ Kits. It is estimated that the cost of one Kids’ Kit is $10. For $90 you can sponsor a child for the entire summer. Place check or cash in the offering plate with a note saying Summer Lunch or donate at bethanyumc.net/donate.
How do we get the food to the children?
Sundays will be GET READY DAYS for the following Distribution on Wednesdays. Sundays after worship (around 12 PM) are when “Checker/ Packer” volunteers will make sure all the Kids’ Kits are filled with the correct items to be distributed on the following Wednesday.
Wednesdays will be distribution day. Our team will be at Bethany from 10AM – 2PM to organize the Kids’ Kits to be handed out to adult drivers who “drive through” and fill out the MUST required paper work. We will be organizing our “supply room area” and taking care of trash generated by the process. We can offer prayer and VBS-like materials to the people who drive through. We can invite these people to visit our church. There will also be routes that MUST MINISTRIES has established for the Driver/Rider Teams. They will arrive at 11 a.m. to pick up and deliver the Kids’ Kits in pre-selected neighborhoods. The Driver/Rider Teams will return to Bethany after deliveries to report information about the days’ deliveries for the planning needs of the following week.
What will the children receive?
The bags of food for each child are called “Kids’ Kits”. Inside each “Kids’ Kit” will be food for five (5) breakfast and five (5) lunch meals with a non-refrigerated drink. Here are some examples:
Contents of a Kids’ Kit – Breakfast
- 5 breakfast drinks
- 5 entree packages such as a breakfast bar or a pop- tart pack, or an indiviual wrapped muffin.
- 5 snack items such as a bag of chips or cookies, or an individul fruit cup or roll-up.
- 5 Drinks such as or Capri Sun or nonrefrigerated apple juice.
Contents of a Kids’ Kit – Lunch
- 5 Entree packages such as Mac & Cheese cup, Ramon Noodles, or Rice cup, or a Slim Jim two pack.
- 5 Lunch drinks such as listed with the Breakfast Kit above.
So where does all that food come from?
Lots of places by the grace of God! Bethany will pledge Fifty (50) Kids’ Kits per week. However, all over the area other Churches, Companies, Service Organizations and caring individuals are donating Kids’ Kits or specific items for the kits or money for MUST MINISTRIES to purchase items. So, every Sunday MUST MINISTRIES will know how many Kids’ Kits Bethany has pledged to make and how many children we need to serve on the routes out of the Bethany Host Centers as well as a supply for drive through persons. They will send us the number of Kits needed to make the total on Sundays for the routes on Wednesday. They will also know if we do NOT have enough volunteers for Packer/checkers and volunteers will be assigned to help us. We will sign up for specific days and jobs over the nine weeks of the program.
Click here to watch a video about MUST Summer Lunch.