Summer feeding programs provide children meals and discipleship

Summer can be an exciting time for children, but it also can be a time of uncertainty. In Texas, 2.8 million students receive a free or reduced lunch during the school year, but during summer vacation, three meals a day are not always available.

Adam Robertson and Raechel Kirby, field director for Mission Denton, help fill sacks of food for the Brown Bag Program. (PHOTO / Olivia Williams)To solve the food insecurity in the summer, the Texas Hunger Initiative created Summer Meals Expansion. 

The Texas Hunger Initiative—a program in Baylor University’s Diana Garland School of Social Work, launched in partnership with Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission in 2009—partners with the Waco Independent School District. 

Through the help of volunteers and funds from the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Waco Independent School District provides food to 50 sites to feed children in need. Texas Hunger Initiative in turn helps convene the partnerships and increase awareness and participation of the program.

Six of the Waco sites are Baptist churches that provide volunteers to help distribute the food. 

“We’re really happy to be a partner of Texas Hunger Initiative,” said Toph Whisnant, the community pastor at University Baptist Church in Waco. “If the kids are undernourished during the summer, it affects the next year, and we want to help out in any way we can.”

First Baptist Church of Robinson Volunteers seal sacks filled with nonperishable and easy-to-fix meals distributed by Mission Denton’s Brown Bag Program. Children receive the filled sacks at bi-weekly Bible studies that include teaching, games, music and other activities. (PHOTO / Olivia Williams)has been a summer feeding site three years, and by providing a location, the congregation sees it as meeting the community need and planting a seed of the love of Christ.

“It doesn’t turn into a Jesus moment until they come onto the site,” said David Tenberg, the outreach and youth minister. “We’re called to do this. We’re not just open on Sundays and Wednesdays, and through the presence of the Father, it’s food for the soul as well as the body.”

Many churches see community outreach as important as distant mission work, and the summer meals program provides a way to impact the community directly.

“Churches are in a really unique position, because it’s such a straightforward kind of ministry and outreach opportunity,” Miller said. “They have an obvious and clear way to minister in places that have such a high need.”

About 125 miles north of Waco, Mission Denton offers the Brown Bag Program that provides children nonperishable and easy-to-fix meals during the summer. Children receive the meals at bi-weekly Bible studies where the word of God is shared through teaching, games, music and other activities.

Mission Denton’s Brown Bag Program provides children nonperishable and easy-to-fix meals during the summer. (PHOTO / Olivia Williams)“Our main purpose is to take Christ to the people by helping provide for their physical needs,” Mission Denton worker Adam Robertson said. “By building relationships with these people, we can be a light for God that spreads his love to Denton.”

The Texas Baptists Hunger Offering provides the food for the Brown Bag Program, as well as lunches for volunteers at Mission Denton.

“We are so thankful” for the hunger offering, said Raechel Kirby, the Mission Denton field director. “It is such a gift and blessing to our ministry to be able to provide meals and food to those in need.”

Leaders of faith-based summer feeding programs agree: They not only are able to meet children’s needs, but also provide believers the opportunity to be the hands and feet of God by serving the community.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The 4th paragraph was edited after the story originally was posted.