Nashville’s Newest Nonprofit
Guest post written by Tyler Peterson, Calvary UMC Stop Hunger Now Leadership Team Director.
After years of planning, Stop Hunger Now is officially set to open its newest location in Nashville, Tennessee. Calvary United Methodist Church will host a grand opening event this coming Saturday, March 5th, 2016 where the community will come together to learn about world hunger as well as be a part of the solution by packaging over 100,000 meals for people in need. Country music icon Vince Gill will be among the 500 volunteers packaging meals this weekend and welcoming Stop Hunger Now our state.
Nashville is widely known as Music City across the world, but is also referred to as the Buckle of The Bible Belt. Nashvillians espouse a strong sense of community and generosity that is difficult to find elsewhere.
Calvary UMC first began packaging meals with Stop Hunger Now in 2013. After this weekend’s event, the congregation’s packaging total will top 400,000 meals. However, we understand that only packaging meals inside our walls will not end world hunger in our lifetime. Calvary UMC has been intentional in expanding the impact by inviting others to join us. It will take a movement of people with the mindset that hunger is intolerable and that action must be taken.
Stop Hunger Now meal packaging events are meaningful to me personally because they are truly intergenerational. Kids from 3 to 103 serve side-by-side to help feed God’s hungry children — and have fun doing it! Packaging meals together helps instill a spirit of service and refreshes the soul, regardless of age or background.
The Nashville expansion will have a huge impact for Stop Hunger Now as the movement spreads across middle Tennessee and beyond. It will not take Tennesseans very long to recognize that it is absolutely unacceptable that an average of 21,000 people perish each and every day from hunger-related issues across the globe.
In the days, weeks and months following this event, we will seek to further engage the Nashville community in our vision of ending world hunger in our lifetime. I strongly believe that the Nashville expansion of Stop Hunger Now is the next big step in making world hunger a memory.
Join the world-changing festivities in Nashville this weekend by registering at calvaryfeeds.org. All ages welcome.
