At Rally Day, We Will Rally Against Hunger
When school gets canceled on a Friday for area flooding, in my household, we hunker down with Netflix, chili and cornbread. My kiddos think of it as a rather impromptu holiday. They have the normal fears that all of our Houston kids have following Harvey. But for the most part they know that if we are high and dry, “every little thing is going to be alright,” as the song says.
For the children of Blackshear Elementary in Houston’s Third Ward, a Friday school cancellation means they will not receive the weekend meal bag provided to them by Bayou City Blessings in a Backpack. That means some of those children who live within a stone’s throw of Christ Church Cathedral begin to worry that their next guaranteed meal won’t be coming until Monday morning. And with school closed for the summer their next promised meal is so far off on the horizon their little heads and hearts can’t even hope that long.
This Rally Day, we are going to come together as a community to fight back against the food deserts that exist within just two miles of our Cathedral. Shoulder to shoulder in Cathedral shirts, we are going to pack 100,000 meals together. Old and young, from all walks of life and multiple nationalities, our Cathedral family is comprised. It is that same family that will step up to the challenge of bagging, sealing, and labeling food at just $.40 a serving to feed the under-served of Houston.
There are so many ways you can help, raise funds, and volunteer. This summer is packed with plenty of opportunities:
Sign up to Volunteer/Help: Beginning in mid-June, look for volunteer sign ups in the cloister area. 250 volunteers are needed to pack the 100,000 meals in a two-hour window. We are excited to work alongside of each of you to pull off this incredible food miracle on August 25. If you would like to help, but cannot be present on that day, there will be lots of serving opportunities that you can also sign up to help with in the cloister as well.
Click here to volunteer to build meals (from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.)
Click here to help in many other ways
Childcare: There will be childcare available from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Jones Building for children ages 6 weeks to three years.
Children’s activities: Children ages 4 years to fifth grade will gather on the Huffington Playground 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Rally Against Hunger Schedule on Sunday, August 25:
8:30 – 10:30 a.m. Registration and check-in in the Cloister
9 a.m. Picnic Breakfast in the Bishop’s Courtyard
10 a.m. Eucharist in the Cathedral in English
11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Meal packing project in both Reynolds Hall and Sanders Hall
1 p.m. Eucharist in Spanish in the Cathedral
As with every Sunday, there will also be an 8 a.m. Eucharist in the Cathedral, a 3 p.m. reception for the Latino/Hispanic congregation (in Sanders Hall instead of Reynolds Hall), and the 5 p.m. Celtic contemplative Eucharist, The Well.
Fundraising: To serve 100,000 meals at $.40 per serving, we need to raise $40,000. This hope is also a “fishes and loaves” moment too. Let’s all reach deep into the couch cushions, make a few sacrifices where our fun money spending is concerned, and fill 100,000 little bellies together.
Click to give: Give online to “Rally Against Hunger”
Wishing Well: We ask that over the next several months, you “keep the change” on your purchases, collecting it in a bag or a jar. Encourage your kiddos to pick up dropped coins as you are out and about this summer and bring those in too. We will be collecting them in our new “Cathedral Wishing Well.” All the change collected during June/July/August/September will go directly to the “Rally Against Hunger” campaign. We want to “keep the change” AND “be the change” we want to see in this world.
Meatless Mondays: Beginning in June, members of the Cathedral will share their favorite meatless meal recipes with us in the Thursday e-news email from the Cathedral (sign up on our website if you don’t already receive it). Challenge your family to take part in cooking a meal together. Then, collect the money that you would have used for meat in your Monday meal and bring it as part of your family’s sacrificial offering toward “Rally Against Hunger!” This promises to garner us some pretty fantastic recipes as well as help us to understand in a small way what some of the recipients of the meals we pack experience regularly.
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