Ministry Resources: Put Your Hands Together Food Pantry

Earlier this year Immanuel, Hillside, Illinois, began a new ministry called Put Your Hands Together Food Pantry. The mission is two-fold: to provide food for local families in need and to provide free food to congregations who have outreach ministries that serve their communities with food for people in need.

Many of our congregations have outreach ministries that provide food for people in need but cannot afford to buy food from the Illinois Food Bank or the Greater Chicago Food Depository. In this new ministry, Immanuel as a distributor for an airlines warehouse supplied free food to the following congregations to give away.

• Chicago Hope Church in Partnership with Chicago Hope Christian Academy serving students, families and their community
• Christ the King, Chicago – for their food pantry
• Good Samaritan Ministries of Immanuel, Palatine - for its food pantry
• Jehovah, El Buen Pastor – for their school families and community food pantry
• St. Peter, Schaumburg – for its food pantry
• St. Timothy, Lombard – for its outreach mission to the Arabic speaking people in the metro Chicago area

In just a few short hours on Monday, Immanuel received and distributed 10 pallets valued at $18,000 to six churches or ministries who are reaching out to serve people in need. As long as the food supply continues to flow, Immanuel will continue to serve these ministries and add on others.

We thank God for this and many other ministries of His Church that bring the Mercy, Compassion, and Proclamation of Jesus Christ amidst the darkness and hopelessness of our culture and the COVID virus.

Pictured new missionary to St. Timothy Lutheran Church Lombard, Pastor Karim Yaghleji and Jayne Siou, Coordinator of Immanuel’s PYHT-Food Panty take a break as Jayne explains how to set up a one day event of a mobile food pantry distribution in parking lot.

If your congregation is interested in this outreach ministry, please contact Dianna Bonfield at Dianna@LutheranChurchCharities.org