Waldrop:I get a lot of plastic grocery bags left at my office door at church with four cans of green beans in them. And I am grateful for each can of green beans that someone gives. But I often wish that they would expand their horizons a bit and give something that they themselves would like to eat, OR at least something highly nutritious and often scarce at food pantries like powdered or canned milk, canned meats, and peanut butter. One of the things on my list of things to do is to organize home bread bakers who would bake bread for the poor. Another thing that we rarely if ever get is fresh vegetables. Home gardeners can plant an extra row or bed or two or three for the poor, and that’s a great gift.
If we wanted to think really radical, parishes and dioceses could actually buy farms and ranches, and operate them for the purpose of raising and producing food for the poor. We could have our own canneries and produce a line of canned goods for the poor — “St. Joseph’s”. The Mormons do this, internationally, and I always think that if the Mormons could figure this out, so could us Catholics. The Mormons know that the value of something like this goes far beyond the actual production of the food item. It might actually be cheaper for them to just go into the regular wholesale trade and buy all that food, but actually producing it themselves promotes solidarity.
hmmmm. (Read the rest here ) Oremus pro invicem!
1 comment:
Indeed, Mr C. I've frequently wondered at the lack of parish/diocesan encouragement of practical preparedness. Even in the city, one parish can raise plenty of food, even on parish property. Raised beds, container gardening...
If the Mormons (who of course I disagree with theologically) can encourage their members to maintain a year's supply of food in their pantries--why not the Catholics? Why not have classes on gardening, small animal husbandry, etc? It is common sense, and very helpful (especially in these lean times) for folks to buy an extra can or four of basic food stocks, to put aside for lean times. Build a pantry up in a slow and steady fashion, without draining the pocketbook all at once...encouraging more self-sufficiency, by encouraging simple things like gardening, food preservation, budgeting, etc. Not everyone is called to larger-scale gardening, or animal raising, but even in most cities, one can raise a few chickens, in chicken tractors...garden in containers on a patio, on a windowsill if space doesn't permit in other places....
Ah, don't get me started. LOL I'm sure I could do some serious rambling on about this...
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