Green Acres, East Texas Food Bank team up to feed 1,200 households for Thanksgiving

Published 3:50 pm Monday, November 25, 2024

A sea of cars stretched around the parking lot of Green Acres Baptist Church on Monday morning as families awaited to opportunity to receive a free meal during an annual holiday distribution event.

In partnership with the East Texas Food Bank, Green Acres distributed food with the help of volunteers. The event was co-sponsored by Exxon Mobil.

“We’re extremely thankful for Green Acres, because they really are the ones driving this,” said ETFB CEO David Emerson. “We’re the ones providing the food and making sure everything’s here for the families, but they’re the ones who really put the work in making it happen.”

Many of the volunteers were members of the church. Volunteers of various ages helped unload boxes to cars.

Each box contained non-perishable foods including beans, pasta, cereal, canned peaches, canned green beans and peanut butter. In addition, people received a whole chicken and a bag of potatoes. Over 1,200 households were served during the event.

“This is the example that Jesus gave us, that we care for ‘the least of these,’” Green Acres Lead Pastor Michael Gossett said. “We have compassion for the least of these and wherever our church can step into the community to be a light in the midst of difficult seasons, we want to do that.”

Green Acres spends weeks organizing the holiday distribution event. The church collected food from its members, and those donations were then given to the food bank to use for Monday’s distribution event along with other foods from ETFB.

“It’s an incredible opportunity for us to serve our community,” Green Acres Missions Pastor John Roach said.

Volunteer and Ben Wheeler resident Maureen Spice came out to the distribution event for the first time with her children — Zander, 14, and Zoey, 10.

“It’s fun to help people that may not be able to buy something for Thanksgiving or any other day,” Spice said.

Spice, a member of Green Acres, decided to volunteer for the first time after the encouragement from her church.

“They volunteer so much, and so we just want to help and be involved in that,” Spice said.

During the holidays, the need for food rises. Due to kids being out of school on breaks, the demand is higher inside many homes, according to Emerson.

“We have a high demand for people that don’t know where their next meal is coming from. During the holidays, it becomes even more important,” Emerson said.

Emerson wants people to remember hunger and food insecurity is not limited to the holidays. He encourages people to volunteer and give back to the food bank.

“The hunger that we see is year-round. One in six East Texans are considered food insecure. One in four children in East Texas,” Emerson said. “It means they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. The need is always great here in East Texas, and so we want to address it year-round.”

Green Acres and the food bank have partnered on this event since around 2018. Green Acres staff says it wants East Texas to know how much their team and members care.

“The No. 1 thing is we want East Texas to know that Green Acres loves them, that the East Texas Food Bank loves them and even more importantly that Jesus loves them, and that’s why we’re doing this,” Roach said.

For more information on ETFB, visit https://www.easttexasfoodbank.org/.