Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, NC

John Vernon had visited with Stephen Elkins-Williams a couple of times over the summer, seeking projects in the community that would fit into a lay ministry.

Since addressing hunger had been one of John's interests, the rector invited him to attend a special meeting of Chapel Hill and Carrboro churches devoted to an unusual fund-raising opportunity that a foundation was offering the North Carolina Food Bank.

The NC Food Bank provides food for the hungry to the Inter-Faith Council and 800 other distributing operations throughout 34 counties in central and eastern North Carolina. It serves 375,000 people at risk of hunger (49% of whom are children) by distributing nearly 2 million pounds of food monthly. That's enough to feed 13,000 people daily! In the wake of Hurricane Floyd, it distributed 5.3 millions pounds.

The rector and John learned that if the NC Food Bank could raise $300,000 by mid-October, the foundation would match that amount. One requirement was that the foundation would only count gifts of $1,000 or more.

The NC Food Bank asked area churches to act as a collecting point for individual contributions, and when they totaled at least $1,000 to write a check to the NC Food Bank.

John saw that as a unique and critically important opportunity. It was important to keep in mind though that the Chapel of the Cross was already planning to repeat last year's successful Project 5000 food collection program starting in September. It was important not to compete with that. John went home that night and talked with Karen, and they offered the rector a more narrowly focused program to raise funds for the NC Food Bank. With the rector's blessing, they held a "Free Coffee/Free Home-Baked Cookies/Free Author-Signed New Books" morning on September 11. Bruce and Dolly Ladd from our parish helped before and during the event. So did Hope Hancock, Development Director of the NC Food Bank.

The invitees were all members of Chapel of the Cross who lived in Fearrington Village, like John and Karen. Although power in their home was lost just as Karen put the coffee on, Dolly raced back to the Ladds' home to make coffee there and bring it back. Fortunately, the Vernons' power came back on in time. For two hours friends from the parish and neighbors within the Village came, visited with each other, picked up a cup of coffee, homemade cookies and two books each . . . and made generous contributions! Ultimately, this group, augmented by two friends of the Vernons from Southern Village, contributed $1,250 to the NC Food Bank.

John and Karen had never doubted that the goal ($1,000) would be met or exceeded. "After all", they said, "these were Chapel of the Cross parishioners and Fearringtonians. There was no way they would fail to meet the need!"

Send items for inclusion in future "Cross Roads."
The deadline is the first Thursday of the preceeding month.