Highland Urban Musical Mission

Mac and Cheese Money

In preparing for our trip, we've had to ask a few questions about the needs of the poor in the Fort Worth area.

One of the surprising answers that we've heard? Macaroni and cheese.

The food bank that is maintained by Richland Hills, it seems, takes in lots of donations from bakeries and grocery stores. These donations tend to be heavy on staples like bread and canned goods and cereals. Even milk and eggs. But the food bank experiences a constant shortage of mac and cheese. One or more boxes of this wonder-food apparently go out with almost every client.

Our families (especially the kids) could immediately understand the appeal of macaroni and cheese. Its easy to make, great to eat, and simple to warm (and re-warm). We love the stuff ourselves. So, we thought, why not bring some mac and cheese with us when we visit the food bank?

For the last few months, all of our families have been saving money to purchase macaroni and cheese. Our plan was for each family to collect a little spare change, and then buy a case or two (maybe even a dozen) that we could donate to the food bank when we arrived.

Now, it seems, we have a problem. Not a BAD problem, really. Instead, its the sort-of problem that arises when you've just finished feeding thousands of people and you can't quite figure out what do with all those pesky left-over baskets of food.

With the money we've collected, it seems, we aren't talking about four or five cases anymore, but something in the range of FIFTY cases (if the current trend continues).

We THINK that we're going to have space to transport all of these cases to Fort Worth if need be, but now we're starting to think in terms of the possibility of using some of the money to do other things - like purchase soft drinks for the kids at Fortress or using some of the money for making a cash donation.

So there you have it: loaves and fishes. We do arithmetic using pluses and minuses. God, however, is more comfortable working with exponentials.

posted by Matt @ Sunday, June 12, 2005