Members In Action
 Sweet Potato Philanthropy - Sometimes good things arrive by the truckload.
Thousands of pounds of sweet Potatoes arrived in the parking lot of Christ Lutheran Church, Cape Coral, Florida, on Saturday, May 12.
The Lee County Chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans joined forces with community members and the Virginia-based hunger-relief organization, Society of St. Andrew, to bag 44,000 pounds of potatoes as its Join Hands Day project for 2007. The potatoes, which were donated by North and South Carolina farmers, were then passed on to hunger relief organizations in the Lee County area.
On drop day, more than 350 volunteers arrived early to cheer on the 8:30 a.m. dumping and to open the day with a prayer. Then they got to work, and everyone pitched in. People pulled up chairs and squatted beside the potato pile, tossing handfuls of spuds into sacks.
“It was something everybody could do,” says Betty Newton, Lee County Chapter president. “Even though there were some that couldn’t go in the sun, they worked in the shade, registered volunteers or helped with cooking lunch for the volunteers,” Newton says.
It took the eager sackers just two hours to fill some 2,500 bags of potatoes.
“It was the chapter’s largest Join Hands Day event to date,” says Newton. “The event was so successful, the chapter is already planning its 2008 Join Hands Day potato drop.”
—Heather Mueller
Find out how you can connect with your local Thrivent chapter at www.thrivent.com/members. Click on Chapter Locator.
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