{Day of Service}

In our neck of the woods, September 29th (really all of September) had been declared a Day of Service by our Governor as well as the neighboring states Governors in their respective states.  Our church decided that we wanted to join in on that Day of Service.  We chose to collect food for an area food bank and our project was called "Feed a Family for a Day".  Our hope was that each family would donate enough food or money to feed a family of their size for a day.  As Latter-Day Saints, one Sunday a month is set aside as a Fast Sunday.  We fast for two meals and the money that we would have spent on those missed meals we give to the church in what we call fast offerings.  Those fast offerings are used by the church to help those in need.  So the idea that each family would feed a family for a day was not a far stretch for us.  We were also asked to reach out to our neighbors and other churches to join with us in feeding families.

I was asked to be a photographer for the Day of Service and it was a lot of fun capturing the goodness of people.  The day was crazy busy.  Ryan was on call, so I had all the kids.  Thankfully a wonderful friend took my three youngest and I took Ayden along.  He was helpful and I didn't have to worry about where he was while I was trying to get pictures.  I was asked to cover our church building and the people dropping off food there and I was also covering a nearby grocery store where we had people asking for food donations.  I ran back and forth between the two and I was able to capture some good shots of people.  There was also a way that people could donate money straight to the food bank, which was nice because the food bank can make that money go a lot farther than we could buying the food at the grocery store.

I think the day was a success.  We  donated over 2,000 pounds of actual food products, 2,337 families will be fed for one day (a family of 3), and we had nearly $7,000 donated directly to the food bank!!  It was wonderful to be given the opportunity to share the blessings that I have been given with those who have less than I do.