|
|||||||||||||
Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Angel Food brings grocery savings to everyone
It may be getting harder to stretch a dollar, but one food ministry is helping to turn the tables on that equation.
Angel Food Ministries is a national program that provides groceries at discounts to everyone, not just people with low incomes.
Once a month, hundreds of families turn out at sites around western Prince William to pick up their grocery orders. The clients come from every socioeconomic class and have one thing in common – they want to save a little money on groceries.
"My wife is ordering this month," said Corey Shepherd, associate pastor of Grace Church of Gainesville and one of the area coordinators for Angel Food. "We just try to work that into our grocery budget ourselves and it saves us money."
Angel Food has no income requirements or applications and is open to anyone. Participants pay discounted prices for boxes of restaurant-grade food that would cost about twice as much in a grocery store.
Orders are placed online or by calling one of the host churches. A month later, the food is delivered to the churches or other distribution sites and customers pick up their boxes.
The most common box ordered is the "signature box," which contains enough groceries to feed a family of four for about a week. The box costs $30 and contains about $55-60 worth of meat, vegetables, grains, eggs, pasta and milk.
The food is good, the same as you'd get in a grocery store, Shepherd said, adding that he and his wife "vouch for the food ourselves with our own money."
The reason the groceries are so inexpensive is because the delivery is handled by volunteers so the overhead is low.
At Grace Church, for instance, congregation members turn out in droves one Saturday a month to unload, pack and hand out boxes at Glenkirk Elementary School.
"Our people love it," Shepherd said. "Our problem really is we have more volunteers than we need."
Grace Church has been involved in the program since November and handles about 50 meals a month, he said.
The church got involved because members felt they'd been doing a good job of ministering to the spiritual needs of the community but were missing out on a key ministry.
"We haven't done a great job or put a lot of energy into practical needs," Shepherd said. "Angel Food just felt like a very real way to help. It's a very tangible way to help on a regular basis."
Down the road in Nokesville, Juan Wlasiuk coordinates the Angel Food program for Vineyard Community Church.
He said he found out about Angel Food several years ago while living in Stafford County.
Someone who had seen a small announcement in the local paper told him about it and he decided to give Angel Food a try.
"What's 30 bucks, you know?" he said, adding that he often spent that much on a single night's dinner in a restaurant.
"We tried it and were amazed by the quality of the food," he said.
He talked to Vineyard church leaders about the program and the whole church got involved.
That was about a year-and-a-half ago, he said, noting that they now hand out 12-20 orders a month.
Most of the customers are regulars, he said, but they see a handful of newcomers each month, just trying out the program for themselves.
Back in Gainesville, Shepherd said Grace Church customers mainly find out about the program from the staff at Glenkirk, where the congregation holds services.
"Even in a very prosperous part of the country – the D.C. suburbs – a lot of people are stretched," he said. "We get a lot of people who are not used to getting any kind of hand-out."
But Angel Food isn't a hand-out, he stressed, and high-income families who participate aren't taking the food away from others.
"You're paying for food," he said. "Just like Giant never runs out of cereal – they just keep ordering more as you buy it."
This month's menu includes chopped steaks, bacon-wrapped turkey breasts, pork chops, chicken breasts, frozen pizza, fresh apples, eggs, rice and other items.
Customers can order online with a credit card or food stamps by 5 p.m. March 16. They then select their pickup location and go to collect their food during designated hours on March 20.
Customers can also call the host church directly to order by phone.
You must be logged in to post a comment.