Photo courtesy of Manchester United Methodist Church.

If you have parked in the Manchester United Methodist Church’s parking lot for a sporting event or to pick up children after school from Klager, you may have noticed a new wooden cupboard at south east corner of the church. This is their blessing box. It was built by a church member, installed near the end of summer, and they hope to use it to help fight hunger here in the community

Pastor Dillion Burns explained that the box is not meant to supplant the food pantry or Family Service’s monthly distributions. He stated, “It’s not intended in any way to be a replacement to the agencies we already have in the community but rather as a safety net to fill the gaps our other resources may not be able to meet – for instance, an immediate need for food outside of the food pantry’s hours. We see it as a place for neighbors to help neighbors, for the community to give and receive as needed. As it says on the side of the box, “Take what you need, leave what you can.”

Anyone is welcome to put items in the box. They also have a bin inside the church for overflow donations when the box is fully stocked. Pastor Burns stated, “Food items that work particularly well in the blessing box include boxed meals like macaroni and cheese, soups, peanut better, jelly, dry cereal, healthy snacks, and so on. Besides that, we also encourage stocking paper products and pet food because that’s a regular need as well! And with the box being right where so many parents come to pick-up and drop-off kids for Klager, we’ve also tried to keep kid friendly snacks for anyone in need of a bit of food on their way to or from school.” The church regularly monitors the items in the box to ensure foods are safe to eat through hot and cold weather.

Much like Little Free Libraries of which Manchester has at least four, Little Free Pantries are popping up throughout the country. The Manchester United Methodist Church’s blessing box is registered along with hundreds of others across the country at http://www.littlefreepantry.org/ “We’ve been excited to bring this idea to fruition and are so glad it finally happened,” stated Pastor Burns.

He concluded, “From a church perspective, Jesus taught us to pray by saying, in part, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ We wanted to make sure there was a place where anyone could get the food they needed that day right away.”

Photo courtesy of Manchester United Methodist Church.