Lunches of Love supplies non-perishable food packs, like those shown here, for children in Madison County Schools. (CONTRIBUTED)

MADISON – A local church is helping to feed school children in Madison County.

The Brook is partnering with Lunches of Love and Madison County Schools. “Lunches of Love is a program that sends food bags home with children in need over weekends and school holidays when the school-prepared meals are unavailable,” Sara Couch said.

Couch serves as children’s ministry director at The Brook. Mission Firefly, a Madison County non-profit organization, is the ministry that sponsors Lunches of Love.

In late November and December, The Brook’s Children’s Ministry sponsored a food drive for the Lunches of Love program that serves Endeavor Elementary School. “We collected their requested non-perishable food items, like juices boxes, granola bars and fruit cups,” Couch said.

This effort reminded The Brook’s youth that “children are here in our own community that don’t have enough to eat. We encouraged parents to have their children make a sacrifice to be a part of the food drive, maybe doing chores to earn money for donated food or use allowance money to purchase items,” Couch said.

The goal was to “cultivate hearts of gratitude and generosity” within The Brook children while caring for neighbors in distress, Couch said. The Brook families filled enough baskets with food to both help with Christmas bags that Lunches of Love sent home and to build a stockpile of food for upcoming months.

Lunches of Love needs several types of individually packed foods and snacks:

* Non-refrigerated milk boxes and pudding cups

* Boxes of raisins

* Packs of crackers and Ramen noodles

* Pop-top cans of soup, ravioli, tuna, chicken and SpaghettiOs

* Cans of Vienna sausage

* Granola and cereal bars

* Servings of macaroni and cheese, instant oatmeal and peanut butter

The Brook’s address is 8573 U.S. 72 W. For information, email to missions@thebrookchurch.com or visit thebrookchurch.com. For information about Mission Firefly, visit missionfirefly.org.