Sprinkle Your Community with a Little Hope
Guest Opinion by Jim Grennell
The Lynden Tribune - June 2, 2004

June 3 is National Hunger Awareness Day. Right now 35 million Americans aren't even sure where they will get their next meal. Imagine not knowing how where, or even when you will eat your next meal.

Tough economic times are forcing many more of our neighbors into soup kitchens; pantries and shelters. It's time to pay attention to this growing problem and support its solutions. Our small community is doing just that.

Recently, the local Lynden mail carriers did their part in addressing the hunger issue and participated with the community to raise over 14,000 pounds of food for the Project Hope Food Bank. This successful effort will keep the food bank stocked with food through the summer months when food donations are more scarce and demand is up.

Need has no season and I marvel at the generosity of local grocery stores, churches, individuals, schools, organizations, businesses who do their part in ending hunger in this community year-round even when there are no holidays to remind us of the poor.

Hunger awareness also gives an occasion to further explain a little more of how we serve our needy neighbors. One mission of Project Hope and the entire Christian Hope Association is to meet needs at the point of need. While we do everything possible to screen and justify an individual's economic situation to establish that they indeed are in need of our services, we don't pry into their past or have concern about their current legal affairs at home.

A recent newspaper story reported that one of our qualified food bank participants, representing a local shelter here in Lynden, receives aid from us even though the living situation is in question, legally, by local authorities. Critics have questioned our decision in serving these, individuals by saying that we should not do so since they are not obeying local fire and building codes. What wasn't in the article and needs to be communicated is that while Project Hope does not con-done illegal or immoral activity, it doesn't mean we will turn our backs on a person or family who is hungry, cold, and in need of clothes or electricity or other basic human needs.

Sometimes in crisis, simple, unconditional acts of mercy and kindness, sprinkled with challenge and encouragement, may ignite hope for a better, more responsible future. There are actual stories of people who received our services in the past and now, after life transformation, give back to Project Hope so we can continue the process of meeting the needs of others.

Someone has said "Hope is the engine of change -- the energy of transformation." We at Project Hope believe, that hope is also a spiritual matter. It's a challenge to our faith based principles and an identification of our goal, day in and day out, as we rally both volunteers and staff to help meet the needs at the point of need without discriminations.