Westminster
HomeThe name FISH is derived from the biblical symbol of a fish that was used as a sign of distress, a plea for help from one's neighbors. Some thirty years ago churches in West Knox County organized FISH to help the people of Knox County who were in need of food and other assistance. Westminster has been a part of this effort from the beginning.
In Knox County, FISH does two main things. (1) It provides free bags of food (and occasionally other emergency items, such as diapers, soap, and toothpaste) to people who request such assistance. (2) It creates opportunities for volunteers to have brief phone or face-to-face conversations with those in need and to hear first-hand of their concerns.
Westminster is one of about thirty churches helping to reduce hunger in our community by participating in FISH; each church covers a different day of the month. Our church directs a sizable portion of its "community service" budget to our FISH operation, and several dedicated volunteers from WPC make sure that food ends up in the homes of the needy on "our" FISH day. If you'd like to help with FISH, please call the church office (584-3957).
We are responsible for answering the FISH phone for about two hours on the second Thursday of each month, delivering pre-packed bags of food that same day, and reporting each month on the number of families -- and especially the number of children -- we help.
Each year during the month of June, it is Westminster's turn to help stock our FISH Pantry at the Church of the Savior of Weisgarber Road. (Dates and hours for 2008 will be announced in the spring.) For stocking the Pantry we need help in a variety of ways: ordering and purchasing the food, picking the food up whcn it has been purchased and taking it to the Pantry, and packing the food bags so they will be ready when our delivery teams need them.
Being involved in FISH is a highly rewarding activity. On the one hand, it provides the satisfaction on "doing outreach" where there's a critical need: hunger relief. (Over 45,000 people in Knox County live below the poverty line, including approximately 14,000 children). On the other hand, Westminster's FISH operation is "staffed" by people who are other-centered, helpful, and fun to be around.
If you deliver food, you will be paired with someone (or perhaps you have a spouse or friend you would like to make the deliveries with), and you'll make approximately four deliveries. Remember, the more people we have to answer the phones and make deliveries each month, the more families we will be able to help! It doesn't take much time, the "work" isn't very taxing, and it's quite O.K. to be involved some months but not others. Several of our volunteers use their lunch break to make their deliveries, while others do theirs the first thing in the morning -- it's up to you.
This is the basic timetable we've been following:
1. On the Monday before our Thursday FISH day, three volunteer coordinators call our phone volunteers and delivery volunteers to find out if they can help out on Thursday.
2. On Tuesday, the information gathered by the volunteer coordinators is passed along to the WPC team leader.
3. On Wednesday, our team leader pairs up the delivery volunteers. She then calls each delivery volunteer to confirm availability and to indicate who will be paired with whom when deliveries are made.
4. On Thursday, the phone in the library is activated so it can receive calls from anyone who calls the FISH phone number listed in the Knoxville phone directory. As each call comes in, a phone volunteer fills out a form indicating the caller's needs and where he/she lives. Each pair of delivery volunteers comes to WPC, selects four of these forms, drives to the FISH Panty on Weisgarber to pick up the needed food bags, and then heads off to deliver the food.
5. On Friday, our team leader sends a report (on how many deliveries were made) to a person who gathers such information from all FISH churches. A chart showing each church's level of involvement is then distributed to (a) the FISH Board of Directors and (b) all the churches involved. (To have access to the food stored at the FISH pantry off Weisgarber, our church must stock the FISH pantry in May and June. We buy the food, assemble and mark the bags, and get rid of large cardboard boxes. Our team leader oversees this part of our FISH activity, with packing help provided by volunteers from the church.)
On the first Saturday of each month, clothing and small household items will be collected from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. by our church neighbor, Episcopal Church of the Ascension, 800 Northshore Drive, to support FISH Hospitality Pantries' Community Chest Thrift Shop and benefit local families in need. Or you can take items to the Community Chest during its hours of operation; it is located at 122 W. Scott Avenue, Knoxville 37917 (telephone: 971-4417) and open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Community Chest-Knoxville, a not-for-profit shop for clothing and small household items, serves all but focuses service to those in distressed situations and those with low incomes. Volunteers are needed.
A FISH Volunteer
Years ago when I began to deliver food for FISH, I did so for two reasons. First, it simply "felt good" to do a good deed. Second, the experience of driving to places where "the poor" live caused me to stop taking so many things for granted. After delivering my grocery bags, I'd think of myself as a "Good Samaritan" who had just followed the Golden Rule. And I'd remind myself, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."
As I look back to those early days of my "career" with FISH, I'm highly embarrassed at how self-centered and arrogant I was. I wrongly considered myself to be better and better-off than those who called FISH and requested food. Worse than that, I now see that I was "using" the poor in a self-serving manner. For me to deliver so I could "feel good" and appreciate more what I have (because I had just seen what they don't have) was to exploit the very people I wanted to help.
These days, I still deliver food for FISH. Now, however, my reasons for doing so are entirely different. I credit this change in attitude to the great theologian Henri Nouwen. In his book Our Greatest Gift, Nouwen argues persuasively that it's wrong to think in "we-they" terms, that we're truly different from others only in superficial ways, and that one of the greatest joys we can experience is to realize that we are (and I use his words) "brother and sister of all people."
I eagerly await my next "FISH delivery day." That's the case not because I'll feel better about myself when finished, but instead because of the "sharing" that will take place during my deliveries. What my FISH "clients" and I share may turn out to be simply a smile or a comment about the weather, though I hope it'll be -- as it has often been before -- something about our families or other concerns of the heart. I'll never know, of course, the impact (if any) of what I share with them. But I can speak with confidence as to the probable impact on me of what I'll hear. Most likely, I will learn yet another "life lesson" that'll allow me to see and think more clearly due to the lived wisdom that's shared with me.
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Updated 2/19/2008