A special thanks to the Belton Post Office’s letter carriers is due.  They helped the community by collecting 4,118 pounds food on Saturday, the 14th of May.  Cleta Baker, board member from First United Methodist Church, organized and oversaw the food as it arrived in the parking lot of the post office.  She and her husband Ken, along with other volunteers and four postal workers, sorted, boxed, weighed and loaded the food onto trucks to be taken to Helping Hands Ministry.  The food collected from the annual food drive will help the clients of Helping Hands during the next few weeks.

For the second time in the month of April, Helping Hands Ministry of Belton was awarded Agency of the Year.  Executive Director, Mike Bergman, gave thanks to United Way of Central Texas and everyone who was one hand at the annual awards banquet. This is the first time that Helping Hands has received the award from United Way.  ”We are all very humbled to receive this award…and are very grateful to you,” said Bergman.

If you have served by praying, volunteering or giving during the past year at Helping Hands of Belton, you will be happy to know that the community’s ministry received Capital Area Food Bank’s highest honor for 2011, Partner Agency of the Year.  Each spring the food bank of Austin receives nominations from volunteers and contributors in the community stating which organization should be considered for the annual award.  Capital Area Food Bank has 355 organizations in 21 counties from which to choose when considering the award.  “We have never had so many nominations for one agency in a single year,” said Karla Cantu, Senior Director of Agency Relations.  As Cantu read a couple of nominations, she stated that 2,038 different families were helped with food more than 26,000 times last year and that more than 1,300 students received school supplies and clothing during Apple Tree distribution.   Helping Hands had great strides in 2010 as it added the client choice aspect to its food pantry in 2010 and initiated the beginning of its educations classes available to clients.

One nomination advocated the following:

“Helping Hands is much more than a food pantry; it is a beacon of hope for so many families in Belton.   Many clients have told volunteers and staff that they feel a difference when they enter the building, that they sense a loving and caring environment.  Volunteers are able to share smiles and handshakes around town with clients because they know each other from Helping Hands.  The gap between the economic classes is being bridged in Belton because of the genuine interactions being made weekly at the pantry’s facility.  Each of the clients is treated with great dignity, love and respect.  When in the building, one can see volunteers from many diverse backgrounds, putting their differences aside and working together to serve the clients, as if each were Christ, Jesus, himself.  This is why hundreds from Belton and Temple support and volunteer with Helping Hands each week of the year.”

Director, Mike Bergman, gracefully accepted the award on behalf of all those who serve in any way in order to share the love and Gospel of Christ, Jesus to those in the Belton community.  Helping Hands Ministry is honored to be recognized in this way and believes that the blessings of God are upon it as it has the support of 25 different local churches, which collaborate to serve those in need.

UMHB’s Collegiate Financial Organization is the newest to partner with Helping Hands Ministry!  With the 2011 goals to begin pilot classes as education opportunities for clients, the student organization has begun to teach the three-part Personal Finance course.  Clients met with Tommy Wilson and other UMHB students in the meeting room of Helping Hands on the 24th of March.  Two more segments of the class will be taught in early April.  For the concluding class, those involved with the Collegiate Financial Organization will meet one-on-one with enrolled clients in order to help analyze and encouragingly shape their situations personally.

Helping Hands Ministry plans to provide more free classes as pilots this year before implementing a larger system of educational opportunities for clients in 2012.  This is part of the overarching goal to create more personal responsibility among clients and the community at large.  The courses are offered are free of charge and are centered on the principles taught by Christ Jesus.

This is the second course offered so far and a third, Parental Support, is soon to debut. At present, the ministry is looking for experts to help create curriculum that is Biblically based and/or teach classes to the clients.  Topics of interest are (but not limited to): Healthy Food Choices, Safety in the Home, Stress Management, Employment Preparation and a class which creates awareness of businesses who prey on lower income residents.

If you are interested in becoming involved in the implementation of an education course to be offered to the clients of Helping Hands Ministry, contact Rucker Preston: rucker.preston@helpinghandsbelton.org.

The opportunities for prayer among clients are now much more available!  The chapel at Helping Hands Ministry is open every hour of every day that the food pantry is open. Clients may enter to mediate or pray alone; or they may ask to pray with one of our prayer volunteers.

Beverly Martin is the ministry’s coordinator for the chapel.  She is often in the chapel praying with clients but needs help from other Believers in the community.  The vision and goal of this ministry is to have at least one person in the chapel interceding for Helping Hands and its clients each hour that we are open (M, T: 10-4 & Th: 12-6.)  If you are interested in being a part of this aspect of Helping Hands, please contact us so we can get you involved.

The 2011 canstruction Belton was a great success!  Helping Hands Ministry’s Food Pantry gained more than 15,000 pounds of food and $20,000 throughout the weekend. All of the funds raised will go to purchasing food for those who come to Helping Hands Ministry for assistance.  We are already making plans for the 2012 canstruction event. Thank you to everyone who lent a helping hand during canstruction!

Channel 8 from Austin aired a news story about Helping Hands and canstruction.   Here’s the link: http://austin.ynn.com/content/local_news/276390/food-pantry-benefits-from–canstruction–competition

Channel 6.1 KCEN (NBC affiliate) covered the needs of the food pantry at Helping Hands.  The story ran on December 7 and detailed some of the reasons behind the food shortage.  Check out the article and news video here.

Helping Hands was featured in the Killeen Daily Herald this past Tuesday.  Sonya Campbell reports on the increasing need among those in Belton.  Click here to read the article in its entirety.

Title: Food for Families Food Drive
Location: HEB Belton (Main Street & 6th Avenue)
Link out: Click here
Description: Food For Families (the largest one-day food drive in Texas) is held each year on the Friday before Thanksgiving. In Belton, donated food is collected at the HEB grocery store parking lot.
Food For Families is a food drive coalition comprised of KWTX 10 of Waco, HEB, the Texas National Guard and local Boy Scouts chapters.  Food pantries across Central Texas who have banded together in cooperation with the coalition members receive non-perishable food during the one-day coordinated drive on the Friday before Thanksgiving. All food donated in Belton stays in the city and goes to fill the shelves of the food pantry of Helping Hands Ministry.
Join us in this effort to help those who are in need of the basic necessities that we have available in excess.
Start Time: 6:00
Date: 2010-11-19
End Time: 20:00