Gracepoint Fellowship Church of Berkeley, CA had the privilege of participating in World Vision’s 30-Hour Famine for the second time this year. Starting in May, Gracepoint Church members – from Pastor Ed and his wife Kelly Kang, to Youth, from elementary students to their parents - geared up for the fast. A total of about 600 people signed up and got to work finding sponsors and thinking of creative ways to collect donations.
The cause of raising awareness of and doing our small part to help alleviate world hunger inspired us to get out of our comfort zones and ask people to donate. Kids went door-to-door in their neighborhoods. Several groups put on garage sales, with church members donating truckloads of goods. Some college students sold baked goods in the UC Berkeley campus, wearing sandwich board signs with hunger facts and selling out every day. Many offered services such as haircuts, massages, car washes, oil changes and dumpster runs for donations, or went door-to-door to local businesses and neighborhoods. People started conversations on the topic of world hunger with coworkers, which led not only to donations but getting a rare opportunity to make a personal connection with the people they saw every day. Someone even played violin on the street for donations! Through this, we experienced that even the most shy among us could grow in boldness when we were thinking of a greater cause. Persevering through rejections and embarrassment proved personally enriching, because we learned that it’s not that bad, that we can do more than we thought, and we got to bond with one another through this.
On June 27, the day of the fast, we were busy all day with community service and fundraising activities. We visited convalescent homes, food banks, helped out at local schools and continued fundraising efforts. Though we tried to keep busy, most of us couldn’t help but feel the effects of not eating for one day. It was sobering to think of all those for whom this is a daily reality, with no end in sight. Recognizing the privileged life we’ve been granted, with plenty to eat and no real fear of going hungry, we experienced renewed gratitude and the realization of the responsibility to give to others as we have received so much. In the end, Gracepoint Berkeley raised over $115,000, surpassing last year’s amount! We were tremendously grateful to have raised so much in the midst of these tough economic times.
Though what we did for the 30-Hour Famine was such a small step in helping the cause of fighting poverty, we gained so much through this experience. We hope that the abiding memory of this will serve to constantly remind us of how blessed we are, and that we will live with the posture of giving, as we saw that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive.
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