APTOS—A local church kickstarted an initiative recently which has raised enough money to fund more than a million meals for Santa Cruz County residents.
Citing “rising anger in our society,” Twin Lakes Church in Aptos decided to launch its “Acts of Kindness” initiative. The project concluded this week with over $300,000 raised for Second Harvest Food Bank, which will fund 1.2 million meals.
The church organized into teams and provided Acts of Kindness grants to help fund individual ideas. Members cleaned rain gutters, cleared dead trees and repaired vandalized properties. Some gave gift bags to every staff member at Mar Vista Elementary School and built a shed for a CZU fire victim.
“It’s so easy to fall into despair at the division in our world,” said senior pastor René Schlaepfer. “Instead, we wanted to be dramatically positive. There were hundreds of projects, large and small.”
Members also delivered necessities to the Warming Center in Santa Cruz, gave every Santa Cruz police officer a gift, and provided gift bags for women at the Freedom Women’s Center in Watsonville.
The climax of the project came this week, when the church revealed the total raised for the food bank.
“Our goal was one million meals,” Schlaepfer said. “I was frankly worried it was too big a challenge in these inflationary times. [But] the church was able to raise 20% over that goal.”
Schlaepfer declared that even though the initiative is complete, that doesn’t mean acts of kindness in general should cease.
“Obviously we won’t stop being kind now that this emphasis is over,” he said. “But we felt we needed a boost to remember how good it feels to love our neighbors. This is not just being nice. In our cultural moment this is a revolution. There is only one weapon that can defeat our extreme polarization. Jesus said it: ‘Love your neighbor.’”
Second Harvest CEO Willy Elliott-McCrea acknowledged the sizable donation.
“This is such a gift to thousands and thousands of families who otherwise would have gone hungry in this season and beyond,” he said.
Second Harvest’s Holiday Food & Fund Drive is ongoing. For information go here.
