Angel Food Ministries: February 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

Johnny Willis’s new book series is to be release May 11th. Order your copy today!

Product description

Servant Worthy
by Johnny Willis "Before God chooses to use someone in the earth, he has already proven them to be servant worthy. Servant Worthy reveals the needed loyalty as well as the commitment level of anyone who is called to ministry.
Speaking from thirty-nine years of successful cutting-edge ministry as a pastor, author Johnny Willis gives fresh new insight on what God is looking for today before one can expect the release of God's anointing upon their lives to accompany their call.
Servant Worthy gives a invigorating look at a recurring theme throughout the Bible, how God proves the heart of a person before considering them for service.
David, weary with fighting had a nostalgic moment and voiced his thirst for water from the well in Bethlehem. Three of his soldiers heard the desire of their king and decreed: 'If my king wants water from Bethlehem, He shall have it.' These three men broke through the enemy territory putting their lives in jeopardy. Their loyalty to the call of serving their king meant more to them than the value of their individual lives. They performed a selfless act that encouraged the King and turned the tide for Israel's future. The beginning of being useable to great leaders, great breakthroughs, and great moments in your life comes when you stop saying no to God's calling in your life and allow his will to become yours!
Johnny Willis is an ordained minister with a doctorate in theology from Springs of Life Bible College. Having a ministry that now spans four decades, his technique for teaching and mentorship strengthens the church as well as the leader. Servant Worthy is the leader's choice as a training tool with perfect biblical examples of true loyalty necessary for the call."
108 pages - $10.99 (paperback)

http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61566-996-7

This book is also available for purchase as an eBook download. Welcome to the world of eBooks where instead of receiving a physical paper book in the mail, you would be given access to the eBook file for this complete book. Within minutes you can be reading this book on your computer, PDA, cellphone or a stand-alone eBook reader (such as the Sony Reader)—at a reduced cost! Click the "Order Online" button below to purchase this eBook download today!
$6.99 (digital download)

Surviving the Sifting of God
by Johnny Willis "It doesn't matter who we are or what our accomplishments in life are; we are absolutely no good to God until we submit to the sifting of God. The enemy of your soul would do everything to keep you from being totally submissive to God and His will for your life.
Surviving the Sifting of God is a hard-hitting truth that causes every believer to examine themselves in their walk with the Lord. God transforms lives when they are willing to allow him to touch anything that Satan has secretly placed there to be a stumbling block to them.
Surviving the Sifting of God uses ordinary biblical characters to point out how Satan will attempt to come against you to prevent you from accomplishing God's ultimate purpose for your life.
Peter, the man that Jesus would call to be the first pastor of the New Testament church would face the sifter and would fail miserably! The good news is that Jesus promised him that He had already prayed for him. Through the sifting process Peter learned that there was an unfailing faith in a failing situation.
Johnny Willis, author of Servant Worthy, is a successful pastor with cutting-edge mentorship and teaching skills spanning more than thirty-nine years. He is a graduate with a doctorate in theology from Springs of Life Bible College. His studies and experiences come to life in Surviving the Sifting of God."
96 pages - $9.99 (paperback)

http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61566-939-4

Friday, February 19, 2010

A Ferry Tale of Faith and Food Shipping to Martha’s Vineyard

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Katrina Weber

news@angelfoodministries.com

A Ferry Tale of Faith and Food Shipping to Martha’s Vineyard

Vineyard Haven, MA (February, 18, 2010) — New England is a mesh of cultures and people; the common theme that runs amongst its residents is the need to flee when spring comes. Like many others around the country, New Englanders spend the winter months crammed into cubicles, offices, and vehicles. When the grip of winter loosens; the North Englanders’ need for flight increases. A popular spot that New Englanders often flock to is Martha’s Vineyard, an island that seems to have frozen in its 18^th century splendor; divided into quaint old fishing and farming villages, colonial government offices and, of course, a resort community for the privileged.

This amusement park of nature is a retreat for many Americans, but what about the full timers, often the shopkeepers and tradesmen who rely on the economy of tourism to sustain them through the cold? Pam McCormick resettled to Martha’s Vineyard from Michigan, and has lived there for the past few years, and lately has been noticing a change in her community. “During the summer months when the island is packed with tourists and part time residents, we have jobs and resources for the year-rounders, but when the cold months set in, we being to realize the effects of the economy. Few jobs, fewer patrons, and few resources all around keep the price of food fairly high.”

Pam had previously used Angel Food Ministries in Michigan, a non profit, non denominational organization that provides quality food at affordable prices. Operating as a food co-operative, Angel Food uses vast purchasing power to buy from top food companies, and relies on a network of more than 40,000 volunteers who help distribute the food through 6000 host sites across 44 states. Her past experience helped aid the decision to ask if Vineyard Assembly of God could become an Angel Food Host site.

Pam has taken on the responsibility of helping her friends and neighbors eat well while stretching their limited funds. Angel Food Ministries offers a variety of proteins, fruits and vegetables, allergen-free products, pre packaged senior convenience meals, seasonal special options, and their “Signature Box” that could supplement generally a family of four for a week for $30. Pam saw this as her best option.

Although Angel Food delivers once a month to the host sites across the United States via 53 foot tractor trailers, Pamela’s host site is set to be the most unique of any of the rest. Vineyard Assembly of God is the only host site separated from a trucking route by an ocean. So, Pam has committed to making a four hour journey across the water by ferry and back to pick up her orders. That requires perfect timing between the ferry schedule and the truck’s arrival schedule, and it requires her to unload the truck into her personal vehicle and head back to the ferry and over the Sound. Then with here dedicated team of volunteers at Vineyard Assembly of God in tow, they distribute the food to the families that placed a monthly order.
Pam’s compassion and concern for humanity has opened doors for many families that felt shut out. The snow birds might bring in the money for Martha’s Vineyard, but Pam and the dedicated people at Vineyard Assembly of God bring hope.

Orders can be placed and picked up at Vineyard Assembly of God. The address is 1048 State Rd., Vineyard Haven, MA 02568. Please contact Pam McCormick for questions or details about the ordering or distribution process. She can be reached at 508-687-9039 or on the web at www.vineyardag.com.
If anyone wants to learn more about Angel Food Ministries and if they distribute around you, please visit www.angelfoodministries.com or call 1-877-366-3646.

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Have you seen the editorial in the New York Times? Hunger is America is growing.

By: Juda Engelmayer

Have you seen this editorial in the New York Times? Hunger in America is growing. 37 million people, about one in eight Americans, knocked on a door of a hunger relief organization – that’s 46 % higher than three years ago. In an article in Thursday’s Times, it talks of the stigma of SNAP (Food Stamps) being lifted, and people who once would not seek them, now rely heavily on the resource.

Why is this important? America needs help. we need an answer for the vexing problems facing our own – and government has yet to offer to the solutions. Yet, for 15 years, Angel Food Ministries has found a way to help people buy wholesome food for far less than they’d pay elsewhere, and it has also pumped needed funds – some $26 million – back into local home-grown organizations in over 6000 communities across 44 states.

It feeds people for less; gives money back and never seeks donations itself – that is the model of a hunger relief organization on the cutting edge, ready to take on the challenges to meet the demands for those 37 million Americans seeking help.

Take a look at Angel Food Ministries; review our February menu; order for yourself or order for someone you know today.

Once Stigmatized, Food Stamps Find Acceptance

By JASON DEPARLE and ROBERT GEBELOFF
A decade ago, New York City officials were so reluctant to give out food stamps, they made people register one day and return the next just to get an application. The welfare commissioner said the program caused dependency and the poor were “better off” without it.

Now the city urges the needy to seek aid (in languages from Albanian to Yiddish). Neighborhood groups recruit clients at churches and grocery stores, with materials that all but proclaim a civic duty to apply — to “help New York farmers, grocers, and businesses.” There is even a program on Rikers Island to enroll inmates leaving the jail.

“Applying for food stamps is easier than ever,” city posters say.
The same is true nationwide. After a U-turn in the politics of poverty, food stamps, a program once scorned as “welfare,” enjoys broad new support. Following deep cuts in the 1990s, Congress reversed course to expand eligibility, cut red tape and burnish the program’s image, with a special effort to enroll the working poor. These changes, combined with soaring unemployment, have pushed enrollment to record highs, with one in eight Americans now getting aid.

“I’ve seen a remarkable shift,” said Senator Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican and prominent food stamp supporter. “People now see that it’s necessary to have a strong food stamp program.”

The revival began a decade ago, after tough welfare laws chased millions of people from the cash rolls, many into low-wage jobs as fast-food workers, maids, and nursing aides. Newly sympathetic officials saw food stamps as a way to help them. For states, the program had another appeal: the benefits are federally paid.
But support also turned on chance developments, including natural disasters (which showed the program’s value in emergencies) and the rise of plastic benefit cards (which eased stigma and fraud). The program has commercial allies, in farmers and grocery stores, and it got an unexpected boost from President George W. Bush, whose food stamp administrator, Eric Bost, proved an ardent supporter.

“I assure you, food stamps is not welfare,” Mr. Bost said in a recent interview.
Still, some critics see it as welfare in disguise and advocate more restraints.
So far their voices have been muted, unlike in the 1990s when members of Congress likened permissive welfare laws to feeding alligators and wolves. But last month, a Republican candidate for governor in South Carolina, Andre Bauer, criticized food stamps by saying his grandmother “told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed.”

Mr. Bauer, the lieutenant governor, apologized for his phrasing but said, “somebody has to have the gumption to talk about the cycle of dependency.”

The drive to enroll the needy can be seen in the case of Monica Bostick-Thomas, 45, a Harlem widow who works part-time as a school crossing guard. Since her husband died three years ago, she has scraped by on an annual income of about $15,000.
But she did not seek help until she got a call from the Food Bank of New York City, one of the city’s outreach partners. Last year, she balked, doubting she qualified. This year, when the group called again, she agreed to apply. A big woman with a broad smile, Ms. Bostick-Thomas swept into the group’s office a few days later, talking up her daughters’ college degrees and bemoaning the cost of oxtail meat.
“I’m not saying I go hungry,” Ms. Bostick-Thomas said. “But I can’t always eat what I want.”

The worker projected a benefit of $147 a month. “That’s going to help!” she said. “I wouldn’t have gone and applied on my own.”

Since its founding in 1964, the food stamp program has swung between seasons of bipartisan support and conservative attack. George McGovern, a Democrat, and Bob Dole, a Republican, were prominent Senate backers. But Ronald Reagan told stories about the “strapping young buck” who used food stamps to buy a “T-bone steak.”
By the 1990s, the program was swept up in President Bill Clinton’s pledge to “end welfare.” While he meant cash aid, Congressional Republicans labeled food stamps welfare, too. The 1996 law that restricted cash benefits included major cuts in food stamps benefits and eligibility. Some states went further and pushed eligible people away.

But as attention shifted to poor workers, food stamps won new support. Wisconsin’s former governor, Tommy G. Thompson, a Republican, boasted of cutting the cash rolls, but advertised the food stamp rise. “Leading the Way to Make Work Pay,” a 2000 news release said.

States eased limits on people with cars and required fewer office visits from people with jobs. The federal government now gives bonuses to states that enroll the most eligible people.

A self-reinforcing cycle kicked in: outreach attracted more workers, and workers built support for outreach. In a given month, nearly 90 percent of food stamp recipients still have incomes below the federal poverty line, according to the Department of Agriculture. But among families with children, the share working rose to 47 percent in 2008, from 26 percent in the mid-1990s, and the share getting cash welfare fell by two-thirds.

In 2008, the program got an upbeat new name: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP. By contrast, cash welfare remains stigmatized, and the rolls have scarcely budged.

Nowhere have attitudes swung as far as in New York City, where Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his welfare commissioner, Jason A. Turner, laid siege in the late 1990s to what they called the welfare capital of the world. After bitter fights, a federal judge made the city end delays in handing out food stamp applications. But attitudes remained stern.

“I count food stamps as being part of welfare,” Mr. Turner said at the time. “You’re better off without either one.”

Since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took office eight years ago, the rolls have doubled, to 1.6 million people, with most of the increase coming in his second term after critics accused him of neglecting the poor.

He intensified outreach. He reduced paperwork. He hired a new welfare commissioner, Robert Doar, with orders to improve service for the working poor.
“If you’re working, I want to help you, and that’s how the mayor feels,” Mr. Doar said.

Albany made a parallel push to enroll the working poor, setting an explicit goal for caseload growth. “This is all federal money — it drives dollars to local economies,” said Russell Sykes, a senior program official.

But Mr. Turner, now a consultant in Milwaukee, warns that the aid encourages the poor to work less and therefore remain in need. “It’s going to be very difficult with large swaths of the lower middle class tasting the fruits of dependency to be weaned from this,” he said.

The tension between self-reliance and relief can be seen at the food bank’s office in Harlem, where the city lets outreach workers file applications.

Juan Diego Castro, 24, is a college graduate and Americorps volunteer whose immigrant parents warned him “not to be a burden on this country.” He has a monthly stipend of about $2,500 and initially thought food stamps should go to needier people, like the tenants he organizes. “My concern was if I’m taking food stamps and I have a job, is it morally correct?” he said.

But federal law eases eligibility for Americorps members, and a food bank worker urged him and fellow volunteers to apply, arguing that there was enough aid to go around and that use would demonstrate continuing need. “That meeting definitely turned us around,” Mr. Castro said.

While Mr. Castro seemed contemplative, Alba Catano, 44, appeared dejected. A Colombian immigrant, she has spent a dozen years on a night janitorial crew but fell and missed three months of work after knee surgery.

Last November, she limped into a storefront church in Queens, where a food bank worker was taking applications beside the pews.

About her lost wages, she struck a stoic pose, saying her san cocho — Colombian soup — had less meat and more plantains. But her composure cracked when she talked of the effect on her 10-year-old daughter.

“My refrigerator is empty,” Ms. Catano said.

Last month, Ms. Catano was back at work, with a benefit of $170 a month and no qualms about joining 38 million Americans eating with government aid. “I had the feeling that working people were not eligible,” she said. “But then they told me, ‘No, no, the program has improved.’ ”

Hungry in America

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/opinion/10wed4.html?src=tptw
February 10, 2010
Editorial
Hungry in America
More Americans are going hungry in hard times and are increasingly dependent on private charity, according to a new study by Feeding America, a national network of food banks. The study found that 37 million people — roughly one in eight Americans — had sought emergency food assistance from the network last year, a 46 percent increase from 2006.

As the recession and high unemployment take their toll, there are hungry families all across the country: in cities and suburbs, poor, middle class and even supposedly wealthy communities.

At a recent news conference on Long Island — seen as a place of suburban affluence — local charities shared stories of families struggling to stay afloat and being forced to choose among food, housing payments and utility bills. In many cases, it seems food was skimped on because hunger was easier to ignore than threatening letters from unpaid landlords or the gas company.

In the Long Island portion of the Feeding America study, researchers surveyed more than 600 food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters and interviewed people who had sought food at those places. The study concluded that about 280,000 Long Islanders needed help last year, a 21 percent increase from 2006. Only a small percentage of these clients were homeless or elderly. Thirty-nine percent were children under 18.
The study found that volunteers are central to the success of emergency feeding programs. On Long Island, 88 percent of food pantries and 92 percent of soup kitchens rely on volunteers. But the news conference revealed that many of the volunteers who collected and served food have become newly hungry and jobless.
It is reassuring that so many Americans are eager to help their neighbors. But it is also clear that the government safety net is failing. The Feeding America study found that about 30 percent of those seeking help from their facilities also received food stamps. This bolsters what advocates for the poor have said for years, that the food stamp program isn’t reaching everyone who is eligible. That must be fixed.

Angel Food Ministries