More than a meal

By Jessica Brodie

PORT ROYAL—For more than a dozen years, Port Royal United Methodist Church has been a quiet refuge in their community, a place where the hungry can get the food they need along with the true bread of life—Jesus.

And every week, more and more people come.

“It’s a wonderful thing,” said Port Royal’s pastor, the Rev. Anne Bridgers. “An older lady told me yesterday, ‘Pastor, I just can’t thank you enough. I go to the grocery store and look at the prices of some of the things I’ve received from the food ministry, and I couldn’t afford to buy this stuff.’ They don’t get that much in supplements. A father told me, ‘I cannot afford to buy juice or drinks for my children—we drink water.’

“With the economy as it has been, we have a lot of need.”

Bridgers’ awareness of that need is where it all started back in 2012, when she first came to Port Royal. Even though it’s a very small church, Bridgers quickly saw the heart the congregation had for helping others. And when the coordinator for the Lowcountry food rescue and distribution network Second Helpings spoke to Port Royal about becoming a community distribution site, the church didn’t hesitate.

That first month, Bridgers said, 50 people came, lining up in the church parking lot to receive a hefty box of nonperishables and other nutritious food items to feed their families.

Last month, they packed and distributed 1,511 boxes, ultimately feeding 5,058 people, Bridgers said.

“My mind is boggled,” said volunteer Vicki Young. “Every week there are more and more people out there.”

Not just a food bank

Port Royal’s food ministry is held Tuesdays and Fridays. Cars line up in the parking lot before 8 a.m. as the volunteers work inside the church, unloading food from Second Helpings trucks, marking barcodes and packing boxes for the people. Some are the sorters, going through the items to make sure everything is high quality before it is distributed. Others work in the back room, gathering the breads and desserts.

“It’s a big operation,” Bridgers said, one that’s taken years to work out, but it’s a tight process today, streamlined for efficiency.

Boxes are taken out, where another crew of volunteers waits, loading the boxes directly into the cars of the recipients.

Bridgers said her job is in the parking lot, serving as pastor, check-in operator and official “listener.” After all, she said, it’s not just a food ministry but an outreach ministry, and she does her best to reach out to those in need.

“Just yesterday I had one of the cars that pulled in, and the gentleman knows me. He said, ‘Pastor, will you pray for me?’ Absolutely! We talked, he told me his need, and I’m there in that parking lot ministering to people. This is not just a food bank.”

‘Here to serve’

Over the years, word spread, and today Bridgers calls their outreach “unbelievable.” People come not only from the Beaufort area but far beyond, some driving more than an hour away on Tuesdays and Fridays to get the food they need.

Young, who has served as a volunteer for several years, said she was a food ministry recipient when she was a child, and she feels strongly about the call to help others.

“For some, you pay your electric bill or you put food on the table,” Young said. “We’re supposed to be like Jesus, and he would serve, and so we’re here to serve.”

“We know we are doing something to help other people,” Bridgers said. “I tell people always that we are Jesus’s hands and feet. He tells us to feed his sheep, feed his lambs and tend his lambs.”

And that’s what they do.

For even though they’re a very small church, they do their best to live out their mission statement: “We’re small enough to know you and large enough to love you.”