Angel Food Ministries: A Blessing for Those Who Need to Feed Their Families

Packaged food from Angel Food Ministries helps feed families during this time of economic hardship. Angel Food Ministries helps churches reach needy families in their congregation in a practical way.

A few years ago Hope EFC of Kearney, Nebraska purposely located in a less glamorous part of town. Why? Because we wanted to go beyond the usual "church" to reach out to those with real needs. During these slow economic times, reaching out doesn't just include having a listening ear, providing positive activities for children, or educational programs for those with financial or substance abuse problems-though we do all of this and more. Many families needed the basics, like food.

The fall of 2008, we were directed to Angel Food Ministries. Angel Food Ministries is a non-profit organization that helps families by providing low-cost, high quality groceries.

Angel Food Ministries began in 1994 in Monroe, GA when Pastors Joe and Linda Wingo saw families hurting after the closing of the local industrial plant. They began to distribute food from their porch. From the first 34 families, Angel Food Ministries has gone nation-wide. Angel Food Ministries now helps feed some 500, 000 families in 35 states and that number grows every month.

Unlike similar programs that we looked into, Angel Food Ministries does not have a volunteer or income level requirement. Anyone can purchase the food boxes. Angel Food Ministries are able to provide food at low cost through buying with volume discounts and passing the savings on to needy families. The main food packages are put together with balanced nutrition in mind. The main, the signature, food box feeds a family of four for a week. The food is ordered once a month and arrives a couple of weeks later. There is no limit to how many different boxes may be ordered.

There are the main food box choices which includes food to feed a family of four for a week, an allergy free box, a box of prepared dinners for seniors and other boxes of meat, vegetables and fruit.

Since Angel Food Ministries participates in the U.S. Food Stamp program, those with vouchers may also order food for their families.

In the beginning, we church leaders of Hope EFC Kearney, Nebraska ordered food packages to check out how the program works and the food quality. We were pleasantly surprised. Once we began offering the program, without anything but word of mouth, the program began to grow more quickly than we imagined.

Angel Food Ministries has proved to meet a real need in our community as it has in communities across the nation. We have found that reaching out to feed families with low-cost, high quality food has been a blessing far beyond the effort we put in to run the program.

For Hope EFC Kearney, buying Angel Food Ministries food helps our benevolent funds go much further than if we purchased the same amount of food locally to give to those families in need. Some who use Angel Food packages buy double boxes-one to keep for their family and one to give away. The food has been a real positive for those with little money or on fixed incomes. It has also been rewarding to know Hope EFC can help families with very real and practical needs.

For an Angel Food Ministries outlet near you, check the web site. Or, for a very special blessing, have your church/organization begin distribution of the low-cost, high quality food to the families in your neighborhood, your community. We may not be able to feed the world, but we can reach out to help those next door, down the street, in our neighborhoods and community.

www.Angel Foodministries.com

http://www.kearneyhope.org