Immanuel Food Bank

Eastlake Pea Patch

2010-10-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

Thank you to the gardeners at the Eastlake Pea Patch for donating vegetables to the food bank. Kale, tomatoes and herbs along with other organic veggies were distributed to those with need.

Benefit concert May 15th at 7pm

2010-04-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

World flute master Gary Stroutsos has performed at places such as the White House, the Seattle Art Museum and Princeton University, we are excited to say that on Saturday May 15th at 7pm Gary will be performing an ICS benefit concert at Immanuel Lutheran Church.

ICS's four programs offer services without discrimination and regard for geographic boundaries in the following areas; hygiene center, food bank, community lunches and men's recovery.

Buy tickets here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/108366

thank you nollie's for the party platters

2010-03-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

nollie's cafe paused from making their delicious in-house treats like cinnamon rolls, chocolate cake with mousse and Jamaican jerk chicken to donate party platters for ICS's annual meeting. The party platters were eaten up so fast I didn't get a chance to have any but I will testify that the cinnamon rolls and soup are amazing. Thank you nollie's! located at Harrison & Minor open from Mon-Fri 6am-6pm follow them on twitter.

Meghan, Dan and Clifford

MAD Pizza Makes Donation

2010-01-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

This afternoon Nick (pictured above) from MAD Pizza located at 1263 Thomas St. donated 50 lbs of brown sugar to the food bank, sugar is very hard to come by (especially 50 lbs of it) and we thank our pizza making friends for donating such a sought after item. I have been to MAD Pizza many times and enjoy the pizza and flat screen TVs, below is a picture from Summer 09 when Entiat Community Church visited Immanuel and we had lunch together at MAD (photo by Kymberlee della Luce).

Workplace Giving

2009-12-22T13:21:00.000-08:00

Immanuel Church member Ben Rippel approached his employer about making a donation to the food bank and they said, 'Yes We Can'. Workplace giving at Immanuel Community Services is a beautiful thing, we are an independent 501 organization so the gift is tax deductible and the financial support continues our 25 year plus tradition of service to the community. Many companies have programs that support nonprofits like Immanuel Community Services, tell your workplace about the Immanuel food bank and you may hear 'yes' like Ben did. Thank you Ben for taking the initiative and for stopping by to drop off the check pictured above at a December distribution from left to right; Brandon program coordinator / Gary volunteer / Ben Immanuel Member.

Our New Community Partner: Whole Foods Market

2009-12-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

Whole Foods Market at 2210 Westlake has reached out to their neighborhood food bank! We first met the folks at Whole Foods on World Food Day, October 16th, when they hosted a canned food drive for Immanuel; they put us and our donation table right by customer service and the customers responded by donating hundreds of pounds of food and hundreds of dollars.

Whole Foods must of liked having us there because now we are picking up grocery rescue food once a week. We are thankful for the much needed ongoing donations and are very grateful for the warmth and compassion the Whole Foods team members show us. Storefront photo provided by Life As Art.

Thanksgiving Basket Success!

2009-12-07T15:33:00.000-08:00

We had a very successful 2009 Thanksgiving distribution; at every Immanuel food bank clients choose the food they take home, for Thanksgiving clients also received a basket (reusable shopping bag) containing items we usually do not have at distribution. Nearly 200 baskets filled with traditional Thanksgiving items (broth, stuffing and cranberry sauce) and 'hard to get items' (sugar, cooking oil and bandaids) went to those with need. Multiple food drives occurred in order to have enough food for this special purpose; thank you to Whole Foods, Antioch University Admissions, Immanuel Lutheran and ICS board member Katie Coleman for hosting food drives! Of course thank you to the volunteers pictured above (including our neighbors at Outrider Ad Agency) who assembled the baskets.

ELCA World Hunger

2009-11-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

In the month of November I had the honor of co-leading a social action workshop for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America at a Global Formation event in Olympia. A Global Formation Event is a regional group of Lutherans coming together to learn about accompaniment, to help congregational teams build the skills they need to be an effective part of God’s mission, globally and locally. The event was an opportunity for me to provide witness of my experiences at Immanuel, a very important part of my time at the GFE was to spread word of the work of ELCA World Hunger who provides relief, education, advocacy and development to people all over the world. ELCA World Hunger responds to Christ’s call to “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37), serving with compassion people who are most vulnerable, paying focused attention to the full participation of women and the needs of children. I worked alongside Christopher Carpentar of ELCA World Hunger, Mary (Region 2) and Kathleen (Region 9) to teach participants about the wonderful church wide work of God’s Global Barnyard (Alternative Gift Giving), Taking Root (grades 3-12 hunger awareness curriculum) and the Hunger Education Tool Kit (how to design, host and lead hunger awareness workshops).

We also discussed the intersection of climate change, hunger and poverty because climate change is affecting the poorest and most vulnerable of the world by resulting in plant migration, unpredictable weather (droughts and flood) and fiercer more destructive storms (tsunamis and hurricanes). You can read ELCA World Hungers blog, Hunger Rumblings and learn about root causes of hunger and current events.

A special moment for me was leading the closing activity on the first day; we started with a group wide game of catch, then broke into small groups to discuss how we can bring our learnings back to our respective communities and then I spoke on my experiences at Immanuel and the value of having a truly welcoming and open congregation. It was energizing to meet active Lutherans from other communities, I especially enjoyed working with Chris, Mary and Kathleen on the social action track and I am looking forward to my involvement with other GFEs in 2010.

From the Global Formation Event I traveled to Everett where Agape and Rachel Kurtz brought Jesus Justice and Jazz to the Everett Theater, where youth from many Region 1 congregations witnessed powerful music and testimony from the artists. This concert was one stop of a 16 city tour that is raising funds for ELCA World Hunger. This tour stop was hosted by Trinity Lutheran College where before the show a couple hundred youth had a spaghetti dinner. I was fortunate enough to sit at a table and break bread with the performers! It was a full circle type of moment for me, to Agape’s mild chagrin I had seen him perform about 10 years earlier at a Region 1 youth gathering. Agape and I barely had time to reminisce because he had a constant stream of little Lutheran autograph seekers. Agape was charming and accessible, I think when people use the gifts that God has given them the world becomes a more beautiful place and for the benefit of everyone Agape and Rachel are sharing! After the spaghetti and rice krispies treats everyone walked from Trinity to the Everett Theater for to hear Jesus, Justice and Jazz.

Rachel began the show by singing A cappella, she has an amazing voice and instantly held the theaters attention. For her next song she picked up a guitar and sang throwing in some yodeling for good measure. Did I already say Rachel has an amazing voice? Well she can play the African drum too, she did just that and invited audience members onto the stage to sing and dance along with her singing and drumming. Rachel’s set was beautiful; her voice and instrumentals were a great accompaniment to her Word.

Rachel brought Agape to the stage for the most meaningful hip hop performance I have ever seen. Over the 10 years since I had first seen Agape he has grown his God given gifts of rapping and dancing to a level of expertise that shook me to the core. Agape is taking full advantage of the unique space a rap artist occupies in the eyes of a teenager, a person who can speak to them in a way 99% of adults cannot. Throughout his performance he laid many important words on the hearts and minds of the youth through his story and song. Agape’s Words touched on many issues including bulimia, anorexia, self-mutilation, American middleclass attitude towards international service work and racial profiling. Agape is also known as dancing David for a good reason, the dude can dance, if David is ever in your area go see him because he is a precious gift to our Church.

Food Bank Volunteer Field Trip

2009-11-13T21:56:00.000-08:00

In the month of October five members of Immanuel's volunteer community celebrated the many successes they had won during the preceding months by going on a field trip! The group rode the light rail line from downtown's Westlake station to Mount Baker where they got off the train to eat ice cream then they rode the remainder of the line to Tukwila International.

In the previous 5 months volunteers collectively donated hundreds of hours of time to staff the food bank, this included time spent at a series of volunteer meetings where a feedback and brainstorming process created changes to how the food bank operated. Through a better food bank over 2,000 people were fed and this field trip was a way to celebrate the community success.

Immanuel food bank is located at 1215 Thomas St and distributes food on the last two Fridays of every month, except for November food bank is on Wed the 25th and in December Wed the 23rd. All are welcome at the food bank, no ID required, doors open at 9:30am close at 11am, there is a wide selection of healthy food and we are always accepting donations.