Rural Neighbors Helping
The issues of homelessness are large and complex. People are homeless for a number of different reasons. Mental illness can be a factor, people suffering from addictions can be another, or people could be living in a shelter or in their cars because they are earning a low minimum wage and cannot find affordable housing. The list is extensive.
For most people, it is not easy to watch the homeless struggle through the snow with their shopping carts, or see them huddled in corners while fighting to keep warm. In fact, the plight of the homeless is so heartbreaking, the downtown community is not the only community feeling overwhelmed. Rural Alberta has also been touched and moved to compassion. So much so, three churches and a school from rural Alberta decided ten years ago to help Calgary’s less fortunate and are still, to this day, doing their part in trying to help eradicate Canadian poverty.
Bethel Evangelic Mission Church, Carstairs Church of God and West Zion Mennonite Church have all partnered together to sponsor dinner once a month for guests at the Mustard Seed. Usually 400 to 600 meals are required. The churches collect food donations from their congregations and volunteers cook and prepare the meals.
Karen Lynn, of Bethel Evangelic Mission Church, says five volunteers come in once a month and work for about an hour to prepare the food. They have a freezer at the church which is reserved just for meat the congregation donates specifically for the Mustard Seed throughout the month. The less expensive things like tomato sauce and pasta the church pays for. In addition to the work the five volunteers do, Mae Somers, a ninety-two year old volunteer at the church, also cooks and bakes throughout the month. She brings in a two gallon pail of hamburger stew and eight dozen homemade buns and squares to contribute to The Seed meal.
- Susan Froehlich
