THAT SAYS 2, 435 BOXES 
AND COUNTING AS OF 
DECEMBER 11

photography by Roy Moon

MAC AND CHEESE PROJECT HELPS FEED NEEDY IN SAN ANGELO

(from the newsletter of the United Methodist Church Southwest Texas Conference...By Rachel L. Toalson, Managing Editor)

Students at Sierra Vista UMC, San Angelo, deliver boxes of macaroni and cheese to local food pantries as part of their Sunday school class’s Mac and Cheese project. This year they plan to collect 2,011 boxes.  It began as a way to help local food pantries.

But for members of the seventh- and eighth-grade Sunday school class at Sierra Vista UMC, San Angelo, the Mac and Cheese project quickly turned into an understanding that a real need existed in their own community.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2008, junior high students at Sierra Vista, led by Rodney Floyd, one of the junior high Sunday school teachers, began a discussion about people in their hometown who didn’t have enough to eat. The class decided it wanted to do something to help those hungry people, Floyd said. So they began collecting boxes of macaroni and cheese for Project Dignidad, a local food pantry, calling the project “Mac and Cheese 100” and challenging others to race to “beat hunger.”

That year, the class was hoping for 100 boxes. In the 30-day collection period, students collected more than 367 boxes of macaroni and cheese.

They have raised or exceeded their goals every year since then.

When the students delivered their donation to Project Dignidad in 2008, Floyd said, only a single box of macaroni and cheese was left on the shelf of the pantry. The director “broke into tears and was most grateful” for the donation, said the Rev. Steven Sweet, pastor of Sierra Vista UMC.

“A middle school Sunday school class began with the hope of helping some local food pantries,” Sweet said. “In the process, they saw that there is an actual need, right here in San Angelo, Texas, and they were touched by the reality right at home. They challenged themselves to do more, for more, and they did.”

Since then, the project has evolved into a collection of more than 1,000 boxes of macaroni and cheese to fill more than one local food pantry’s shelves during the holiday season.

In fact, this year the group’s goal is to collect 2,011 boxes. They have so far collected 1,700.

Last year’s boxes, 1,524 of them, went to four different charities in San Angelo, including Project Dignidad, Wesley Soup Kitchen, Meals for the Elderly and House of Faith. This year the boxes will be given to the same charities, but The Salvation Army will also be a fifth recipient.

Floyd said that in years past, students have purchased peanut butter, jelly and spaghetti with donated money, given by people within the church and the community.

The project has begun to “take root in other churches and nonprofit sectors of the city,” Sweet said.

“This ministry project has also invited many others in the community into support—many others both within and beyond our local congregation. This ministry is multiplying its efforts and its results.”

Sweet said one of the junior high students, Lonnie Griffith, took his 2010 Christmas gifts cards and spent them on his personal contribution to the Mac and Cheese project. His parents were “unaware of his participation and were inspired by their son’s faith and faithfulness.”

“Lonnie’s contribution is emblematic of the class’s commitment to this ministry project,” he said. “The youth of Sierra Vista really do understand they have been blessed to be a blessing.

Junior high students at Sierra Vista UMC, San Angelo deliver boxes of macaroni and cheese to local food pantries.  “Our youth have learned that their lives are a real and significant part of the overall ministry of Sierra Vista UMC. They have learned that their efforts have helped others in need, have challenged the whole congregation to be generous and that they have been an inspiration in our community to create a larger giving effort. Through this effort, many of our youth have become invitational to other youth, bringing them into the life and ministry of their church.”

Floyd said another student presented the campaign to a homeroom class and collected more than 25 boxes. And one anonymous donor gave $300 to the project last year in memory of their granddaughter, who passed away at 16. Her favorite meal was macaroni and cheese. This year, they donated $500 to the project, he added.

Between 15 and 30 youths participate every year.

Floyd says that if other youth leaders want to teach their youth about caring for the needy, they need only look around them.
“You don’t have to look very far to find someone who is hungry or in need,” Floyd said. “Sometimes the biggest blessing that comes from this project is for the people who donate.”

Sweet said his whole congregation takes “great pride in the faith formation of its youth and rises to the challenge to be more compassionate and generous themselves because of the effort” of the youth’s Mac and Cheese Ministry.

A junior high Sunday school class, he added, “has created a stir” in a city of 100,000.

“When caring and sharing can trump crime and drama? That is an amazing story, in our culture at large,” Sweet said. “I have loved watching this ministry grow, watching our kids’ lives of faith and generosity expand and our church’s support and nurture of the next generation of leadership.”

As of December 22, the total number of boxes was 2,666.  The youth delivered approximately 530 boxes of Mac & Cheese to 5 different organizations:  Wesley Soup Kitchen, Project Dignidad, Salvation Army, Meals for the Elderly and House of Faith.  There was a small amount of concern over the three sixes in that 2,666 number… But I say, look at what God did through the Junior High Youth, their dedicated leaders (Rodney Floyd, Butch Baker and Joe Lee), and YOU! I don’t think those three sixes mean anything other than DEFEAT to hunger and that Satan dude!  Because on December 22, 2011… WE BLESSED THE SOCKS OFF THIS TOWN! Thanks 143 million times for your help and support.

Hugs and blessing from your Sierra Vista Youth and Tina!