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God Works! shows what a parish can do
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published April 25, 2008
Editor's note: First in a periodic series on the impact of the economic crisis and the Church's search for solutions.
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Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
Fr. Daniel Nusbaum, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, Temperance, visits with four women who showed up for the God Works! community meal before a Scripture class. |
Temperance — As parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Detroit consider how they can respond to the economic crisis, the experience of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in starting God Works! is being put forward as an example of what can be done.
From an inauspicious beginning last fall, the weekly God Works! free community meal has grown to serve about 60 people a week, and related food and clothing distribution efforts and health-awareness programs also help people in Temperance and the rest of Bedford Township stretch their budgets.
God Works! was among the "practical strategies for response" spotlighted at the Aug. 15 Michigan in Crisis=Parish Communities in Crisis "summit conference," which drew nearly 200 people to Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
Situated just above the Michigan-Ohio state line, the once-rural Bedford Township – which includes the village of Temperance — is now basically a suburb of Toledo, and consequently suffers from the same maladies as other midwestern industrial centers.
Layoffs and plant closures have eliminated many manufacturing jobs that once brought prosperity to the area.
Fr. Daniel Nusbaum, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, figured his southern Monroe County community could benefit from its own version of God Works! — a program in the city of Monroe that involves several Catholic parishes and Protestant congregations.
So, he enlisted the cooperation of some local Protestant pastors, and the Bedford Township God Works! offered its first free community meal last November.
The turnout for that first meal might have convinced some people there was really no need for the program, but Fr. Nusbaum was confident it was just a matter of the word getting out.
"We had 15 volunteers, and just one person showed up, who must have been the best-served person in history. But by the third week we were serving 40, and now we average 60 a week," he says.
And because some people take food home with them for family members who could not come to the church, Fr. Nusbaum reckons the program is really feeding more like 80 people a week.
In addition, families with children are encouraged to take enough food home to provide a meal the following day. And there is always bread to take home, thanks to a Toledo-area Panera bakery-cafe.
During the winter there were also coats and sweaters, thanks to the local Lions Club.
And all the food that is left over each Wednesday gets packed up and taken to Good Sam's, a homeless mission in Toledo.
Although other area congregations are involved, the community meal is always held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, because it is the only church in Bedford Township with a licensed kitchen.
But most of the volunteers on any given night might be from the local Methodist or Baptist church or the Church of the Nazarene, Fr. Nusbaum says.
"I'm trying to convince some of the larger Protestant churches to do what's necessary to get their kitchens licensed," he continues.
But the goal is not to relieve his parish of the burden of hosting the community meal every Wednesday night, but to make it possible to offer the meal more than one night a week. Our Lady of Mount Carmel's facility is booked solid on other weeknights with religious education classes and other activities.
Fr. Nusbaum emphasizes that the God Works! program is not promoted as a kind of soup kitchen, but as a community meal to which anyone may come. "We avoid using words such as indigent or needy, but rather offer it as 'a way to stretch out your monthly budget,'" he says.
And, indeed, some other parishioners do come by for the meal. On April 16, for example, one table was made up of women who were at the church for Fr. Nusbaum's Scripture class later that evening.
"But we also have the single father with five kids and the single mother with two kids, who says it's the only thing that's saving her," Fr. Nusbaum says.
God Works! is also assisted by the Knights of Columbus and the Keen-Agers senior citizens group. The Monroe County Retired Senior Volunteer Program manages the volunteer rotation.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel's parish nurses have also been incorporated into the God Works! program, providing health screenings and offering an exercise class.
The parish has an unusually large parish nursing program. "We put an item in the parish bulletin about an organizing meeting, and 17 registered nurses showed up," Fr. Nusbaum recounts.
Mark Vandegrift, one of the volunteers from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, says he enjoyed helping with the community meal so much that he now does it every week, sometimes also making the run to Panera to pick up the bread.
Marge Hofheinz, another volunteer from the parish, says the wonderful thing about being a God Works! volunteer "is that it's so heartwarming to do it, to see how it is helping people."
Her husband, Dave Hofheinz, agrees: "Fr. Dan got us involved in a good program."
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