Share Your Lunch
In the Gospel story of the loaves and the fishes, it says that Jesus fed over 5,000 people because “a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish” simply shared his humble lunch! I suppose the best way to summarise this story is contained in the phrase, “A little goes a long way in God’s Hands.”
Over many years, we have raised funds for some of the neediest communities on our planet. Through the proceeds of our Fair Play Café, Pre-School Playgroup and through the sales of flowers from our adjoining garden area we have been able to put a little into God’s hands. One year the funding is sent to charitable projects in Africa, another year to Asia, then to Latin America, and after that to Eastern Europe. Eventually, we also use this funding to help charitable organisations here in Ireland.
Another development of this idea has been our use of our “Share Your Lunch” tips jar on the counter of our café. We invite our customers to contribute their spare change to our Share Your Lunch fund. All of the money that goes into the tips jar is uploaded each month in €10 units onto our “Share Your Lunch” Voucher Cards.
This means, if we receive €200 from our customers in our green donation box each month, then we have 20 of these Voucher Cards. These cards are then distributed to local individuals and families in need to buy meals in our Café completely free of charge. This fund also helps to pay for free lunches that we provide and distribute each week for families who may be housebound or who suffer from life-limiting conditions.
During the recent Covid-19 pandemic, we were invited by our local community police to expand our share your lunch initiative in response to the plight of many in our local community. For more details of this see one of the following below.