Five Thousand Pounds of Potatoes

Editor's Note: Victory Mission will need volunteers on Saturday, 15 December, from 8–11 AM to deliver Christmas meals to Springfield residents. Stay tuned to E.notes for more details (and be cleaning out your trunk) in the meantime!

by Heather Myer

On an otherwise uneventful Saturday morning, 17 of Life Point’s young adults gathered together in the heart of Springfield. Abandoning much-desired sleep, we shook off drowsiness and bypassed a lazy morning to serve our community. We arrived in carpools from Ozark, Nixa, and the far corners of Springfield for two purposes: to eat chocolate muffins and help with the Victory Mission's Thanksgiving Drive. VM assists families who have come across difficult times and eases their burden by providing groceries necessary for a holiday feast. We loaded delivery vehicles with food items. FedEx joined families and friends to go on quests through side streets in order to greet families and hand deliver meals. Five hundred families and over 1,500 individuals were blessed by Victory Missions.

We quickly learned that in order to make an impact for our community, we must first serve each other. Traffic cones provided by Matt and Stephen and hand signals by Sarah, clad in a bright orange sweater, directed cars forward. Town Criers such as Amy Hill were necessary to guide Kit, Jeff, and Dallas as they carried large turkeys. Andrea shook open brown paper bags for Heather G. to fill with cartons of eggs. Colby tore open bundles of potatoes for Jon. Courtney and Lyndsey encouraged others with good cheer as they manned the grocery sack pallet. Alison and Kylie told others what was needed to complete orders as they dashed between Fords and Nissans, arms filled with turkey loaves and eggs. Our labor knew no boundaries to height. A petite Katie handed a rather tall Heather M. a low-lying bag of groceries before grabbing one of her own. A moment later, Heather helped Katie hoist her bag in the bed of a large pick-up.

Within a 3 hour time span, our toil was completed. Through a collective group effort we lifted 5,000 lbs of potatoes, carried 6,000 eggs, tossed over 5,000 lbs of turkey, and handed over 500 sacks of dry goods. Our weight-bearing exercises have brought a new meaning to “community.” Several lessons were learned by our labors:

1. Assembly lines work great for playing pass-the-turkey and re-boxing eggs.
2. It is never fun to be too late for the action. If trunk has already been filled, you don’t want to be the one returning a 50 lbs bundle of potatoes to a pallet.
3. Don’t be fooled by appearances. Some large SUVs were only able to take 3 meals. Several 2 door cars held up to 9 meals!
4. It is necessary to start a chilly morning with hot chocolate and a prayer of thanksgiving to our Lord.

Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does. —Ephesians 6:7–8

Young Adults Volunteer at Springfield Victory Mission

by Heather Myer

I have helped with Victory Missions for two years, and each time the Lord blesses me much more than I could ever hope to bless another. The previous three times I had helped with a food drive, they were short on volunteers to help load groceries into cars. It isn't a hard job, but it does require lifting and is a nice workout. I was a bit nervous and I didn't know how many volunteers to expect. Most people I had spoken to were either noncommittal or had other plans for the morning. We had to work out in the cold in 30-degree weather and arrive at 7:30 on a Saturday morn.

I arrived at the site with a breakfast offering of Panera bagels and hot chocolate, and at first, I didn't see anyone I knew. Pallets containing grocery sacks, boxes of hams, and bags of potatoes were scattered on either side of a driveway, and several men were breaking down cardboard boxes a distance away from me. These men were aided by VM, and it warmed my heart to meet some of those we were helping serve. A man with a familiar face waved from a distance and walked over to greet me. Paul, quite disguised by several layers of clothing and devoid of his glasses, had been helping the men take apart the boxes. I was impressed by his punctuality, as the time had just reached 7:30. He had brought a friend from college named JT to help. The thing about SBU is that it is so small that college-mates might not have personally known each other at the time of attending school, but we can easily recognize each other’s presence several years after graduating. We share a kind of special bond based on our Alma Mater’s uncanny use of purple on every surface imaginable (and I do mean every--from dorm phones to hand rails) and the fictional mascot of a bearcat. Such was the case with JT.

My good friend, Kendra and her boyfriend, Kyle, arrived shortly afterwards, and the five of us huddled around the bagels and hot cocoa, hoping to stay warm. Soon, the cavalry arrived. Three cars pulled into the driveway and Jon Goings, Dallas and Heather Gilion, Sam and Rachel Pate, Andrea and her friend Wendy, Bryant Fletcher, and Tiffany Blackwell joined our huddle around the bagels and cocoa. A van full of 20 youth also arrived from Cherry Street Baptist Church to help with the efforts.

Anne, the VM coordinator, gathered our groups and the men from VM. We were told to find a position and man it. When a delivery car pulled into the driveway, a number signifying the quantity of families to be helped was put on the dashboard. Each family received a ham and two grocery sacks (containing a cake mix, frosting, nuts, powdered milk, fruit, eggs, bread, corn, green beans, rolls, and other items that I have long since forgotten).

Soon, a stream of cars arrived, and because most other areas were manned, I mainly helped the men with the hams (the boxes contained 4 hams, with a combined weight of 40 lbs). Jon and Dallas helped dole out potatoes and hams, and the youth delivered grocery bags to the cars while the rest of our group set up grocery sacks and filled them with food. When I grew weary of hams, I helped our group on the other side of the drive. It was such fun! We formed an assembly line to speed up the process: First, Paul unfolded grocery sacks like nobody’s business. (Sam commented on this, and Paul replied, “I have gone to college for nine years to do this very job!”) I picked up a sack and twisted to allow Sam to drop a package of orange juice into my bag. Rachel then took my bag and passed it to Heather, who placed bread in it. Tiffany put fruit in it and then passed it to Wendy, who put eggs in it. Andrea then picked up the bag and raced in attempts to beat JT and Bryant to the cars. If they did not get to a car before the others, they might have to carry the bag back to the pallets without depositing it, which wasn’t very productive.

We had quite a bit of fun with our assembly line, and at times, we all lined up and picked up grocery sacks and handed them off to one another for the sake of moving them 10 yards down the driveway; it helped us stay warm and easily provided entertainment. At other times, we would become overeager in our attempts to race each other or stay warm, and more than once, I grabbed too many hams (six or seven) in my eagerness and had to ask Dallas or Jon to help hoist them in the back of a pick-up truck when I could not lift them myself. In another instance, Andrea had lost her grip on her second grocery sack and Paul reached out to save her bag while keeping hold on two of his own. We had a very good system of teamwork.

We ran out of hot water for cocoa about 10 o’clock, and by that time, the bagels had lost their warmth and had become icy feeling; however, the sun peeped from behind the clouds and warmed us. Along with the sunshine and my hefty boxes of ham, I was able to shed my jacket and freely dash to deposit food in cars. It was such fun! It astounds me to think that something so small as carrying ham or placing eggs in a grocery sack can lead to establishing deeper friendships and providing fellowship, even in the wee hours of a Saturday morn. God is so very good. We were able to form relationships with the men from VM, the youth group, and the kind people who generously dedicated their time to delivering the food. We finished around 11 a.m. and went our separate ways. In all, we were able to help 750 families in Springfield to have a Christmas feast. Again I say our Lord is so very good!