Sowers Class

Monday, February 2, 2009

On the first Sunday of every month our church takes a food collection for Ministry and More, a local food pantry. Usually our family goes shopping for canned food and other personal hygiene items they request for the people in need of assistance.

For the December 7, 2008 collection we did something different. In 2nd grade our son's teacher made crackers with her class. They made them for each classroom at the school. Within the cracker was candy, confetti and a note of good tidings for the Christmas season. This was placed inside a piece of cardboard tube, wrapped with tissue paper and the ends tied with a ribbon. It makes a festive package. You crack them open and the candy falls out to be enjoyed.We built on this idea but placed Bible tracts in snack size ziploc bags with and assortment of hard candy (especially peppermints since it was Christmas time). Then the bag was placed into a piece of cardboard tube, the tube was wrapped with tissue and the ends tied with ribbon. When we ran out of tubes and tissue we continued to use the snack bags and wrapped them with regular Christmas wrapping paper.

This plan B was a lot faster even though it didn't make as attractive of a package.We made 83 before running out of candy and tracts. We didn't spend as much money for the monthly gift to Ministry and More in December, but it took a lot more time to make the crackers than it did to go to the store for some canned goods.We included a note with the box of crackers to Ministry and More, but no signature. The final line of the note was, "Just a little something to give with food and love during the Christmas Season."

We could make these bundles up using an assembly line as a class for Ministry and More to give out all year - not just at Christmas time. For now it's something I'm glad we did in December. Just felt like the right way to spend an evening. We could use big plastic eggs toward Easter time with candy and some of the smaller scale Bible tracts. Something to think about.