By Bill Gay
Bill and Penny Gay of Pleasant Dale Church of the Brethren in Decatur, Ind., have been volunteering in various locations in Alaska for many summers. Their work centers on community gardening and efforts to reduce food insecurity. The projects in Alaska have received support through grants from the Global Food Initiative. Here is an update on their continuing work:
In 2022, Alexa (sister of the village chief in Circle, Alaska) said to us, “We love having you here in our village each summer, and what you do for our elders is amazing. But if you really want to help our people, please stay in Fairbanks and base your summer volunteering at the Stone Soup Cafe and love up on our people there as you do here.”
So, beginning in 2023, we have done just that. We begin each weekday at 6:45 a.m. at the Stone Soup Cafe (soup kitchen) helping out any way that’s needed. This is such an amazing way to start our day.
The soup kitchen closes at 9:30 so at 9:45 we travel a few blocks to the Fairbanks Food Bank. This is such a blessing because it takes us to a totally different part of the food bank system than the Community Harvest Food Bank in Fort Wayne, Ind., where we access food for our food program at Pleasant Dale Church of the Brethren.
At the food bank, we put in a two-and-a-half hour shift. As a volunteer you’re allowed to take home 10 pounds of produce or baked goods. We take the 10 pounds in loaves of bread and return to the soup kitchen and donate it for the next day’s meal. The price of food in Alaska in crazy expensive, so this is such a benefit to the soup kitchen’s bottom line.
Then we begin work at the Stone Soup Cafe Garden located just a couple blocks from the soup kitchen.
This schedule is repeated six days a week. We have fellowship with friends to end each day.
We are so very excited to have a youth group of 15 or so from the Pleasant Dale Church, including adult advisors, traveling to Fairbanks for a week of service, fellowship with indigenous groups, and experiences of what our lives are like here each summer. This is the sixth church group that has spent time with us in Alaska.
— Bill and Penny Gay have a blog of stories recounting how their 17 years of work began in Alaska, and stories from the years since then. Go to billandpenny.blogspot.com
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Find more Church of the Brethren news:
- Church of the Brethren Inter-Agency Forum sends letter regarding multicultural commitments and welcome at Annual Conference
- Intercultural Ministries seeks volunteer ‘frontliners’ (in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole)
- Church of the Brethren staff and leaders meet in Uganda to plan for increased humanitarian needs in South Sudan
- Grants support increased humanitarian needs in South Sudan, among other responses to violence and war
- Messenger magazine receives three awards from the Associated Church Press