JESSICA BRANDI LIFLAND
Top left: ELCA member and farmer Raquel Krach pours supplemental feed made of rice and peas for her family’s free-range pigs. Krach and her husband, Greg Massa, work on their organic family farm called Massa Organ- ics, where they grow primarily rice and almonds but also have livestock including pigs, sheep and goats. Above: After the Massa family says grace they eat din- ner, most of which is grown on their own land or locally. From left: Mason, 7; Grace, 14; Krach; Greg Massa; and Lily, 7. Bottom left: Mit, 9 (left), Mason and Lily help their dad mix the rice and peas supplement for the pigs.
community garden but also form rela- tionships with local food banks. The food banks eagerly accepted the produce—all 8,300 pounds of zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, butternut squash, pumpkins, Brussels sprouts and onions—and distributed it to needy families.
“It just sort of caught afire,” Sandt said of the project. “We did all the little jobs—planting, weeding, har- vesting, delivering. The good Lord grew all the food.”
About 400 miles to the west, Lutherans are at work in a very differ- ent setting.
Calvary Lutheran Church in East Cleveland, Ohio, sits in an impover-
22 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
ished urban neighborhood with no real grocery store—a few small shops stock more liquor than food. To get by, many residents turn to Calvary’s Hunger Center, which distributes gro- ceries three times a week. But hunger isn’t the only food- related problem. Many residents also suffer from Type 2 diabetes and other illnesses that are made worse by consuming processed foods high in sodium, fat and sugar.
So Hunger Center director Evan Stewart helps clients learn to cook nutritious, affordable meals. The project received a $3,000 ELCA World Hunger grant in 2013. “We try to encourage them to get more vegetables into their diet,” he
said. “We have a fellow who comes in from the farmers’ market [who teaches] different ways of preparing meals. We have a lot of single female clients with many children. If we can change their eating habits, it will make a big change in years to come with the chronic disease situation that we’re facing right now.”
As St. Philip Lutheran Church in
Roanoke, Va., has discovered, hunger is often hidden. Its pastor, Kelly Der- rick, learned from her children’s elementary-school principal that some students were showing behavioral and emotional problems as a result of not having enough to eat at home, particu- larly over the weekends. She relayed that fact to the congregation.
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