Eating To Raise Money

You all know that I'm a Christian, and I think most of you know that my denomination is Mennonite. One of the things Mennonites are big into is social justice and they are also big into eating. So what better way to raise money for peace and development work all over the world than by eating?

Every year relief sales are held all over North America to raise money for Mennonite Central Committee. Everything at the sales is donated. MCC is an amazing organization which does a lot of good all over the world. You can check out their website for more information or the post I wrote about this sale from last year. This year we didn't participate in the Run For Relief but we did go to our local sale and meet up with some friends and eat some good food!

Rachel and Sam quite enjoyed playing with all the change given at Change 4 Change, formerly known as Penny Power.

One of the big attractions at this specific relief sale is the strawberry pie. I thought these pie facts were interesting. This booth raises a lot of money.

We spent some time watching the quilt auction. After the feature quilt for the year was sold, we all sang "Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow." However we sang a famous Mennonite version, known as "606," which was its hymnal number in one of our older hymnbooks. Most people have this song memorized because we sing it at all special occasions. Check out a YouTube video of a different group of people singing it here. It was pretty amazing to hear a whole arena full of people singing this song. In fact, it made me cry.

Another big feature of the relief sale is eating. It always strikes me as ironic that we raise money to help people all over the world by eating a lot, especially when a lot of the money goes to help people who don't have enough food. Our family consumed pancakes and sausage, watermelon, ice cream, strawberry pie, and varenky (like perogies), and we were only there for three hours. It was a lot of eating :)

I can't wait until next year, and I'm really hoping we can do the Run For Relief again. We decided not to do it this year because of Dave's hand injury in March. However, running, and then eating, and meeting up with friends in between times all seem like good ways to raise money to me!