Feeding ministry receives grant to expand services – and hearts

By Lisa B. Hamilton, January 16, 2009 [Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Bethlehem in northeastern Pennsylvania has awarded The Church of the Good Shepherd in Scranton a $200,000 grant to help expand its "Seasons of Love" ministry to the community's needy.

The funds will be distributed over five years in $40,000 installments. At the end of five years, said husband and wife parishioners Warren and Pam Shotto, what began as a monthly feeding ministry will include a food pantry, a renovated clothing exchange area, showers, restrooms and an overflow homeless shelter.

On one Sunday each month, between 75 and 100 working poor, homeless persons and struggling seniors from throughout the Scranton area enjoy a meal – a favorite menu features meatloaf and macaroni and cheese -- in Good Shepherd's parish hall.

Good Shepherd's ministry began in 2004, when "a group of people who wanted to help" began serving a meal every month in the parish hall, said senior warden Warren Shotto in an interview. Then as now, news of the meal is spread through word of mouth, and hand-written signs in homeless shelters and senior housing complexes.

It was the same year that about 15 parishioners left the Episcopal Church with the rector, who converted to Roman Catholicism.  Average Sunday attendance was around 35.

"We were on the verge of closing our doors," said Pam, the parish's vestry liaison to outreach. Yet we called our program "Seasons of Love" because of the song from [the musical play] Rent that speaks to how we value one another."

Warren added, "We had to decide [whether] to continue Seasons of Love with a deepened commitment or to just call it quits.  Finally we said, ‘We're here already and we need to stop worrying about how to pay the heating bill and start worrying about how we're going to help needy people in our community.'"

The vestry decided to limit finance discussions to five minutes each monthly meeting, a practice that continues today.  "Miraculously, we were able to meet our bills each month, and last year the budget even had a surplus," Warren said. 

"When you do good things, the money comes," said Pam.

Today, Good Shepherd's average Sunday attendance is between 40 and 70.  "On ‘low church Sunday,' the Sunday after Christmas when most people stay at home, we had 57 people worshipping in our pews," Warren said proudly. Last month, 12 people joined the parish through confirmation and reception. "You see new faces nearly every week, and many of them want to be involved [in Seasons of Love]," Warren said.

The ministry draws on helpers from the Scranton community, including a Presbyterian youth group that helps serve the meals; a Methodist church that provides toiletries; eight high schools that have made Seasons of Love an accredited program for high school community service hours; hair stylists who give haircuts; and nurses who offer health care screenings. 

One of the community's most visible ways of giving is through its clothing distribution project. With the purchase of some shelving from a clothing store that is closing its doors and the use of a 3,500-foot basement, parishioners plan to create an area where clothing can be distributed to the needy "in a way that gives them dignity along with clean clothes," said Pam. 

"Many of these people don't have a way to wash their clothes," said Warren, "so they rely on clean new-to-them-clothes from us each month."

"It's been eye-opening for every one of us participants—even the folks who weren't so sure they wanted homeless people in the church building" said Pam. "But once somebody comes once to volunteer, that's rarely the last time we see them.  High school kids who have completed their community service hours continue to come."

One of the most moving events Pam has witnessed occurred when a homeless man asked a 17-year-old volunteer for toothpaste at a dinner when none was available.  "No sooner had I begun worrying because the kid had disappeared than he came back with 50 tubes of toothpaste he'd bought himself so he could give one to each guest."

"The best part of all this for me," said Warren, "is seeing lives of people who are serving changed.  It's amazing to see minds and hearts open because of the people we serve." 

--The Rev. Lisa B. Hamilton is correspondent for Provinces I, II, III and IV. She is based in Venice, Florida and Sandisfield, Massachusetts.

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