Helping Feed The Community

Helping Community THE FEED

by Steve Gamel

In times of crisis, it’s nice to see community leaders, local businesses, and everyday volunteers step up to support their community. Thousand Hills Church in Corinth did just that with a food drive that exceeded everyone’s expectations.

On June 4 and 5, Thousand Hills We just said, ‘Whoever is in need, come partnered with a nationwide humanitarian get it.’ It turned out to be a great event.” organization called Convoy of Hope So how did such a large-scale event like to distribute more than 1,400 boxes of this get started? With a phone call. mostly fruits and vegetables to families that have been severely impacted by Convoy of Hope is a non-profit the COVID-19 pandemic. organization based in Pastor Ben De Boef said he had between 60 and 80 volunteers on hand for the two-day event at Lake Dallas We didn’t know where people came from, and we didn’t Springfield, Missouri. They specialize in disaster relief work and provide everything from food and supplies High School. Recipients care. We just said, to humanitarian services came from as close as ‘Whoever is in need, throughout the world. nearby neighborhoods come get it.’ According to their website, to as far away as Dallas. they’ve already surpassed “We wanted to do our part and support the community,” De Boef said. “There 10 million meals in response to the coronavirus crisis. De Boef personally were 23 pallets of food. I didn’t even know reached out to Convoy of Hope it would be that much, so we turned a because he could see a need in his own one-day event into two and were able to community and wanted to act quickly. distribute it quickly. We didn’t know where “I said, ‘I know you guys do a lot of poppeople came from, and we didn’t care. up events, and we’d love to partner,’” he said. “I figured, if they’ve got access to the food, we can make it happen. I can’t imagine how many of these they’ve done throughout the country. It’s been pretty cool to see how far-reaching they have become.”

Once the deal was made, all De Boef and his congregation needed was help. And that wasn’t hard to find.

“We were going to host it here at the church, but given the size, I called in a few favors at the high school and was able to have it there,” he said. “My daughter and I started doing a lot of Facebook posts to promote it, and we ended up having between 60 to 80 volunteers. The Lake Cities Chamber of Commerce was there, a couple of local businesses that heard about it came to help, and many other volunteers. It’s definitely something we’d like to do again in the future.”

For more information on all the fantastic events at Thousand Hills Church, visit their events page at https://

thousandhillspeople.org/events.