CRC Food Pantry a Multifaith Effort
As she offers prayers during the Sunday worship service at Silver Spring (Md.) Christian Reformed Church, said Bethany Besteman, she often envisions the faces of people who have been connected in one way or another with her church’s food pantry.
Among them is Chad, a lawyer, who translates for Spanish speakers. Another is a Jewish business owner who donates kosher food. Then there’s Pedro, a teenager who served at the food bank and then brought his family to help out. Pedro and his family eventually started attending and also joined the church, said Besteman, who serves as pastor of worship and discipleship at Silver Spring CRC.
“When I think of these people and all that the food pantry has come to be, I have this greater appreciation for and understanding of what our church is and what it is capable of,” Besteman said.
Although the church has had a Food Pantry since 2013, what makes this a key, even transformational, ministry is how the church has been able to mobilize and respond to the lack of food and other items people in their neighborhood experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“COVID reshaped the weekly rhythms of our church, cutting us off from our regular contact with each other as we worshiped through Zoom. But having the food pantry allowed us to be more integrated with people in the community and to connect with schools, other churches, and members of area synagogues,” said Besteman, a commissioned pastor who earned a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Jennifer Renkema, a social worker and longtime church member, was named director of the food pantry about a decade ago. From the start, she said, she worked to link the food pantry with other communities of faith and organizations to help provide food as well as volunteers for the program.
The food pantry, she added, has been a way to bring blessings from her church into the neighborhood, which has a mixture of Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant residents as well as families who have immigrated to the area from all over the world.
“I see the need for food as part of a larger problem of inequality in housing, employment, and education,” said Renkema.
With this in mind, she added, “We have wanted to be more than a food pantry. We have wanted to be a place of hope and encouragement. We have wanted to play a role in bringing about community togetherness. This is where people are able to share their stories.”
A huge turn in the food pantry’s ministry came about when the COVID-19 pandemic led to closures and lockdowns. It was clear right away, said Renkema, that the need for food was going to skyrocket.
Numbers help to tell the story. In 2019 the pantry provided assistance to nearly 100 households every month. At that point, it was open only once a month. But when the pandemic hit in 2020, donations to purchase food came rolling in from a range of sources. Recognizing the need, the church began distributing food every week to some 650 local households. Cars would line up for blocks, full of people waiting to receive food and other items. In some cases individuals or families would arrive on foot and wait their turn.
“The pandemic did something for the pantry that we couldn’t do on our own,” said Renkema. “It allowed us to become a community pantry to serve the needs of hundreds of people throughout the area, and it brought in volunteers from various places to help meet the needs.”
Though obtaining, sorting, packing, and distributing food can be hard work, volunteers found they were affected positively in many ways, as were those who received the food.
Sean Hennigan, a teacher at nearby St. Andrew the Apostle School, said that staff and especially students have had their eyes opened to the needs in their community by volunteering at the food pantry. And they are grateful to have the chance to serve.
“This service allows our students to put their faith into action by helping and caring for others as Jesus did,” said Hennigan. “By working with the food pantry, students extend what they learn in religion class and receive the opportunity to put the gospel message into practice.”
Pat Bushouse, a member of Silver Spring CRC, got connected as a volunteer soon after the food pantry opened. She knew people who lived in nearby government-subsidized housing and encouraged them to come.
“Helping at the food pantry became my connection to people, and I have had a very real sense of being able to worship through community outreach, especially during COVID,” said Bushouse.
Particularly meaningful for Janet Van Dyke, another church member, was how people in the neighborhood rallied and got behind the food pantry during the pandemic.
“When the pandemic hit, we made connections with our Jewish and Catholic neighbors in ways we were not able to before,” said Van Dyke.
“They've been supporting us through food and monetary donations and volunteer time, and we would not have been able to do what we do without them. Not only has God enabled us to care for our neighbors; he has also connected us to those around us.”
Jill Goldwater, who worked for many years at various Jewish non-profits, decided with her husband in the fall of 2020 to volunteer by packing food at the food pantry. That was during the height of the pandemic, she said.
When the pandemic started to wind down and the church went back to distributing items once a month, the Goldwaters continued working. And as they did, she said, “It was bittersweet when weekly distributions ended, because we missed the connection with people who were involved in the process.”
But then Silver Spring CRC opened a secondary distribution that focused on local elementary school families.
“Helping with that has been wonderful because it is really nice to interact with the families receiving the aid,” said Goldwater.
Today the food pantry continues working to give people what they need.
During the current Advent Season, for instance, donors frequently stop by to drop off containers of cooking oil to be given to people during the holidays. The goal is to gather 700 or so bottles or cans of the oil.
“We heard from people that it is an item they would really like to have when preparing food for their families and friends this time of year,” said Renkema.
An added benefit is the symbolic nature of oil, she added, and how it is used by different religious traditions to bless, anoint, and usher in healing.
The food pantry, she said, is a ministry that has continued to bridge denominational and religious gaps, and this has allowed Silver Spring CRC to live out a mission that has both challenged and led to growth in the congregation while allowing friendships to stir and flourish among people of many faiths or no faith at all.
Besteman agrees wholeheartedly. “We might give people a simple bag of food, but it’s the relationships we have been able to develop that have grown and that help us to see how God has been in this all along,” she said.
