November 16, 2023

Galilee volunteers had a busy weekend! Their mission? Producing Family Break Bags for our Backpack Buddies kids to help feed their families over Thanksgiving break.

With enormous help from Cub Scout Pack 1483 and Boy Scout Troop 1154 and their Scouting For Food drive, Galilee took in a whopping 3,608 pounds of food on Saturday. Volunteers from our BPB team, Galilee Youth Group, and the Junior Women’s League of Loudoun braved the cold early morning temperatures to collect and organize the scout’s contributions.       

But that’s not all. Cans and boxes from the scouting drive made up only a portion of the food used to make Family Break Bags. Earlier in the week, Galilee lay leader Jen Shah led a food drive at Keller Williams Realty; the Galilee congregation brought in their own Break Bags by ones and twos; and we had already collected more than a hundred boxes of cereal at our WGTS Sticker Stop earlier in the fall. These combined efforts yielded 1,229 pounds of food to add to the scouts’ 3,608 lbs for a total of 4,837 pounds.

Now get your calculator out. That’s substantially OVER TWO TONS OF FOOD!!  Congratulations Galilee!

On Monday, we had a team of volunteer packers put the 275 Family Break Bags together.  The reusable grocery bags were donated by Harris Teeter, so that was a big savings!  Our packers made quick work of the assembly line and soon groups of bags covered the Library and Narthex of the original building, all tagged and ready for deliver by our BPB drivers to the schools we support!

We did it, Galilee! We’ve provided invaluable food for families who need it over the Thanksgiving break. We can’t wait to do it again next year!  

Why? Because we follow a Galilean who said, “For I was hungry and you gave me food.”