Federal agency: No praying allowed
BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— The executive director of Lake Area Ministries said her organization is no longer accepting food donations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture after the federal agency told the ministry to stop praying with clients.
Tanya Dennis told the Keystone Heights Rotary Club that in addition to the prohibition on prayer, the agency also requires burdensome paperwork from the ministry and prohibits LAM from collecting any information from food recipients or asking them questions.
She added that praying with clients, counseling them and talking to them about their lives are integral parts of the ministry. She said compliance with USDA rules would cripple the organization’s central mission.
“We interact with them,” Dennis said, “praying with them outside, getting their stories, helping them with more things besides food. We don’t want to put a band-aid on it, and they keep coming. (We ask questions) like: What’s going on? What’s happening? Do you need a job? How’s housing?”
Dennis told one story of a father whose children had been out of school for six months because the parents erroneously thought they could only register their children online for classes.
“I’m like, no, let me make a phone call,” Dennis recalled of her response to the dad. “We got his kids in school.”
“We have been blessed since we got them out of there,” Dennis said of the ministry’s break with the federal agency. “We’re more than just a food pantry. It starts with food, but then we just minister out from there.”
We all worry sometimes
Dennis made the comments while giving the Rotary Club an update on the ministry’s activities.
She said LAM has been providing food to the hungry for over three decades.
‘Things have changed in the past 32 years,” she said. “Thirty-two years ago, a loaf of bread was 70 cents. Today it is over $4.”
Dennis added that while food costs are rising, more people are seeking help from the organization.
“It’s easy to worry,” she said of the outlook for the area. “We all worry sometimes, but we’re confident we can be the hands and feet of Lake Area Ministries and continue to serve the Lake Region.”
Dennis said the ministry helped 7,532 families in 2021, up from 7,505 the previous year.
“And out of those Year 2021 families, 167 are new families,” she said. “They’re brand new to LAM: they’ve either moved to the area, or they’re just in need of food now.”
Wanted: peanut butter
Dennis said the organization had spent over $50,000 on food through the second quarter.
She added that the ministry’s overwhelming majority of food is from local groceries.
Dennis also revealed that the elderly are increasingly in need of food, with around one-third of the ministry’s clients between 65 and 70 years of age.
“The price of food went up, Social Security stayed the same, medicine went up, and they can’t make ends meet,” she said.
Asked what food item the ministry needs most, Dennis replied: peanut butter.
“Many seniors use peanut butter with their medicine in the morning because of the protein,” she said.
Dennis added that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches remain a favorite with children, “and we always have plenty of bread. We have no problem with bread.”
