Franklin Park Church Feeds Families Pinched by Shutdown

The snow started falling last Friday as the volunteers pulled into the parking lot of Rivers of Life AME church, 9200 Edmonston Road in the Franklin Park neighborhood, for the Grocery Giveaway. The pastor, the Reverend Aaron Tinch, has a philosophy: “No one will outwork us,” so he was on site first to lead by example. Two Eastern Shore farmers, Floyd Pugh, Jr. and Kent Ballard had gotten on the road at 4:30 a.m. and were heading to Rivers of Life with 55 cases of chicken. That’s 3,000 pounds. It was their contribution to the hard-hit DMV of furloughed federal workers. Although the government shutdown had ended, one of the organizers, Kandice Freeman, president and founder of The Way To Live, Inc., a nonprofit for health and wellness, knew that there were still families who were experiencing food insecurity. Yeah, the check is in the mail won’t get your family fed,” volunteer Tanya Knox quipped. The night before, the young adults of the congregation had gathered to repackage 350 pounds of rice into family friendly portions to add to the chicken. Would those who had pre-registered brave the snow? As the crowds thinned, slowed by the weather, two Rivers of Life trustees, Rodney Harrison and Charles Grace, jumped into action. They went to the neighborhood clinic and told patients that there was free chicken and rice for families. They approached parents and guardians picking up students who were being released early from Springhill Lake Elementary School because of the snow. The Franklin Park leasing office offered to send out an email to alert residents to the grocery giveaway. Families picked up generous bags of food, enough for two to three meals. Tinch, the supply pastor at Rivers of Life, was bundled up against the weather as he passed out meals to families and invited them to come and visit next Sunday. He and Freeman finished each other’s sentences about the chance meeting which led to this moment. “We had attended a Sustainable Farming Conference at the University of Maryland and struck up a conversation with the two Eastern Shore farmers. They are as passionate about an equitable relationship between farmers and consumers as we are, and here we are,” they finished. Tinch, new to Greenbelt, has a simple philosophy. “We want to learn and identify the needs of the community. We believe everyone can serve.” He pointed to one of the volunteers. “This is my Payne Seminary classmate and concert pianist, Karl Van Richards, who stopped by to visit before his performance tonight.” He laughed, “See, everyone can serve.”