Here A Chick, There A Chick……..

In a small town, goodness glows, grows and flows. Such was the case last week when our pastor had a little more on his plate than usual. A curious donation appeared out of thin air. With no preparation or crew, 420 chickens arrived at the church. Oven ready, these birds weighed on average of 5 lbs. each. With at least one gallon of fluid in each bag of ten, the donation weighed over a ton. These chickens were professionally processed, frozen, and awaiting distribution.

Without knowing the history of the deal, the theater of the mind can run wild. It would be safe to say that the chickens became “Priority #1” the day they were delivered.

Our church serves the community in so many ways. Without going into the details, we are an active bunch that will take on any need and try to make things better. That’s the true purpose for any church. There are those churches in my community that are not visibly active. Their building sits on Main, with no activity save a few Bible meetings. Local churches should be “Love In Action”. Definitely a place to learn, but also a place to HELP and DO. In this day and age, a lot of Doing needs to be Done.

I can only tell you that a nice peaceful morning of reflection turned into a scramble to beat the clock. While the chickens were delivered on ice, that would only last awhile. A major distribution needed to be planned and executed, while the chickens sat nicely in nature’s refrigerator. Thank goodness for the coldest days of the year.

42 heavy duty boxes held one industrial strength food grade bag of 10 chickens. One box equaled 60 – 70 lbs. Each bag needed opening. Each chicken needed to be transferred to a 1-gallon zip lock bag. Just where was Mike Rowe when we needed him? This would prove to be a dirty job.

With faith that everything would turn out okay, our phone tree sprang to life. The word of the give away went out on Facebook. Volunteers showed up in their oldest clothing with latex gloves and plenty of bags. People brought their dollies to move heavy boxes. With the temperature that day hovering around 40 degrees, the chicken brigade went to work. Our goal — to unbox, re-bag, and box 200 chickens in one hour for the big give away. Each person would receive two beautiful oven ready lemon-pepper chickens. Quite a lofty goal.

Children were involved in the procedure, transporting newly packed boxes from the packaging area to the distribution center by red wagon. In sixty short minutes, all chickens were handled. Mission accomplished.

One volunteer had worked in a deli and had handled industrially packaged meats. I’d been slave labor while helping my family dispatch 100 farm-raised chicken for our family’s yearly need. As the youngest of our team, the Vivacious Veteran did all the heavy lifting. That day, she moved 1,000 lbs. for those of us that were a little older.

The Day of the Chicken was a huge success. No one became sick. The mess was kept to a minimum. One hundred local families received meat for the table. Our church completed another important task to finish out 2022.

Whatever you do today, think of some way you might help to feed local people in need. Hunger is real. At this expensive and cold time of year, plenty of kids go to bed without proper nourishment right in our own towns. Every grocery store in our town is collecting for food drives. Help if you can. There’s nothing better than a warm meal on a cold night. Above all else….remember…Eat Chicken.

More tomorrow.