Comments on: At St Dunstan’s Harvest Festival

By: Jan Marsh

Jan Marsh — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 18:29:38 +0000

we were out walking a couple weekends ago and wandered into a country church in time to share coffee and cake and see their pile of packets and tins destined for an East London foodbank…

By: Heather Fenton

Heather Fenton — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 14:19:52 +0000

I can tell you that the problem about food is only too real in the countryside too, I’m afraid. We have a few vegetables usually but now churches now focus in tins and packets for the local food bank. In this case ‘local’ means the Food Bank 25 miles away but I’m told people who qualify to use it can get a free bus pass to go to the town were it is! Celebrating God’s gift of harvest by giving what people actually need is now much more appropriate than giving an elderly lady a large marrow and wondering how she would use it all!
Heather Fenton (Rev)

By: RBuxton

RBuxton — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 13:00:42 +0000

Delicately put. The media may be declaring that the recession is over, but the effects have yet to reach their peak.

By: Naomi

Naomi — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 09:45:10 +0000

When I was at school, this was exactly the kind of harvest festival we had. I remember boxes of teabags, bags of sugar, packets of biscuits and cakes and tins of anything you could imagine up at the front of the stage in the hall where we had our assemblies. As a small child, I did wonder about the people who would be eating them – I think they were for the local elderly – and wondered if we had been able to give them what they actually liked to eat…

By: SBW

SBW — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 07:59:21 +0000

Thank you GA for this interesting piece. As a child growing up in the suburbs of London, our Harvest Festival was traditional – we at the small church school next door took home-grown produce from our allotments and small gardens into church, and sang what has become one of my favourite hymns, ‘We plough the field and scatter the good seed on the land’. Although none of us had any experience of country life, this occasion annually fed my imagination with scenes of rural life. I enjoyed arranging the colourful vegetables in an old shoe box, and decorating it to make it a welcome gift. More than that, it helped me to think about growing food, tending gardens and then eating that produce. I like to remind myself and my own children (now teenagers) why we are giving thanks for our food, and for the harvest, the work which that involves for those who work on the land, and where our food has come from. Food banks play a vital role in enabling those who are struggling to have something to eat, so now throughout the year, we make donations to our local food bank. But we also enjoy the traditional Harvest Festival, and remember the words of that good hymn, and give thanks. Its wonderful to learn about St Dunstan’s, who give support to all those in need. I hope its a successful harvest.

By: Achim

Achim — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 07:38:03 +0000

A very special perception of things just as they are. Keep on acting this way!

Love & Peace
ACHIM

By: Valerie-Jael

Valerie-Jael — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 06:10:06 +0000

Good idea to collect what people need! Valerie