Our Daily Bread free meal program to begin next week

This Wednesday, First United Methodist Church will kick off its Our Daily Bread program at the church, providing a free hot meal and take-home sack supper every day until the beginning of August. Similar to last year, the program will be held inside and will not be offering a curbside pickup or delivery option.

The program welcomes all in the community and is held at  11:30 a.m. in the FUMC McCree Hall from Wednesday, July 6, through Friday, Aug. 12. The program was started in 2011  when FUMC member Bronwen Choate was in her final teaching year at Graham ISD.

Choate wanted a program where the children could be fed in the summer after school was out and following the school district’s summer feeding program through the United State Department of Agriculture. She obtained funding for the program after speaking with her church and since then the program has continued to grow.

“We started doing it to feed the school children in between when the school stopped and school started, which is the end of June, middle of August. That’s how we started and then we figured out that the parents needed the food too. Then we figured out that a lot of people didn’t have transportation to get here, so we added the bus (transportation). And then we decided, ‘Well, there are a lot of people in the community that just need the food that maybe aren’t old enough for Meals on Wheels,’ and now I understand Meals on Wheels you have to be referred to by your doctor. (...) So we just decided, whoever wants to come, can come,” Choate said. “So we really have a mix of older people and young families. It’s been kind of an interesting mix. We have lots of volunteers (...). It takes about 20 people a day to pull this off. So we’ve been blessed that people have shown up to help them do that. It’s a cross section of communities, not just our church volunteers.”

For the full story, see the Saturday, July 2 edition of The Graham Leader.