Southern District
Albany First Brings Dedication and Innovation to Feeding the Hungry
By Rev. Rich Fuss, Albany First UMC

In response to the Council of Bishop's call to work to eliminate hunger in Oregon and Idaho, Albany UMC has adopted a three-fold mission plan. First, we host the Albany Gleaners group, which serves as a weekly clearing house and food bank for over 60 families. This Gleaners group will be the recipient and distributor of the food grown in our Hunger Garden, described below.
 
Second, and perhaps most exciting, we have started the Louie Schroyer Memorial Hunger Garden. This garden, named after one of the church fathers who was passionate about mission and gardening, is being planted on the east side of the property on an unused portion of the lawn. The garden is approximately 40x60', with plans to build raised beds for next year's garden so that mobility-impaired persons can help with the planting and maintenance. To plant the garden, the congregation decided to work in three teams: the ground preparation crew, which is preparing the soil and making sure water is available at the site; the planting and maintenance crew, who are responsible for choosing what we plant, when we will plant it, the actual planting, watering and weeding; and the harvesters, who will (obviously) harvest the crop and see that it gets to our Gleaners group. To date, we have a crew of people, including the children of our Early Learning Center, growing starts in anticipation of warmer planting weather.
 
Third, our new youth group is making a documentary on the topic of hunger. This topic was chosen by the youth themselves. With a generous gift from the Albany United Methodist Foundation, the youth group has purchased a digital video camera and a computer to use for documentary film making. At this point, the group, which consists of youth ages 11-16, is starting their research both on hunger and how to make documentaries. As this project progresses, the group  will document the planting and growth of the  garden, talk to people in the community about hunger in this area, communicate what our faith tells us about food and hunger, and even participate  in a fast to experience hunger  first hand.  Since this  is a new project and  since  the youth  themselves  are in  charge of  the  project,  these are  all  the details I have about this exciting examination of hunger.