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Category Archives: Loaves & Fishes Blog
Where Does Your Treasure Lie? For One Little Girl It’s In a Hotel Cabinet.
By Guest Blogger Marilyn Marks. Last week I accompanied the mother of a family of five to a Loaves & Fishes pantry. The mother was quiet and thankful that the food was there. Her family lives in a hotel room with a microwave and stove top but no oven. Still she smiled when she saw cans […]
When you have to make choices – gas, lights or food?
Juanita Reed has a degree from Johnson C. Smith University, is a substitute teacher for children with special needs for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. She is recovering from a recent hip replacement and is on leave. She came to the Loaves & Fishes pantry at Holy Comforter with one of her four daughters. Kinara, 19, is […]
A Holiday Madhouse (for which we are #grateful)!
On a rainy morning one week before Thanksgiving, three SUVs and a pickup pulled up to the back door of the Holy Comforter pantry. Workers from Mayer Brown, a global law firm with a Charlotte office, unloaded 3,000 lbs of food, while Loaves & Fishes volunteers scrambled to get it all in grocery carts. It […]
Summer and the living ain’t easy
How can it be this hot before summer officially gets here? We’re in the midst of a two week hot spell with temperatures in the mid to high 90’s every day. Not the way I picture June in the Piedmont. That makes me think of all the different ways we picture summer. For most of […]
Meet Me in Galilee
Spring always brings new life! Whether you celebrate Easter, Passover or just the beauty of a Carolina spring; new opportunities, new possibilities and new growth are everywhere you look. April has brought some rebirth to Loaves & Fishes. After a couple of years of turmoil, the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina has reopened their property […]
The Discipline of Choice
At a recent board meeting I heard a very different take on Lent. After identifying the meaning of Lent for those not familiar with it, the speaker talked about the centuries old practice of giving something up for Lent. Except this time it was from the perspective of families who turn to Loaves & Fishes […]
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow……
Like many others, the icy weather gave me an unexpected day off. The ice closed down much of Charlotte for 24 hours. I enjoyed an enforced stay-at-home day – slept late, worked on my taxes, read by the gas logs. Unfortunately most of the people who turn to Loaves & Fishes for emergency food supplies […]
Give Them The Sauerkraut!
Long before I became associated with Loaves & Fishes my church held a food drive 4 times a year. My most vivid memory of those days was asking my five year old son “John, what shall we donate to Loaves & Fishes today?” After checking out all the choices in the pantry he invariably replied […]
Is This News Good or Bad or Maybe Both?
It was two days before Thanksgiving, almost time for the pantry to close. The volunteers had served 39 families already that day, with one lone client still shopping. So it was quiet and a good time to talk to a reporter looking for a story. The first question is always “How many people has Loaves […]
We Gather Together to Start…Christmas Preparations
It’s only the first week of November and I am already stressing about Christmas. Every year I grumble about the season starting earlier and earlier. I actually passed a house last night with a fully decorated tree in the living room! I realize consumerism is what fuels our economy, but I grieve for what we […]
