On the second Thursday of every odd month a dedicated group from across the diocese meets to give away as much money as it can.

Since it was formed in the mid 1970s, the diocesan Hunger Fund has given away more than $1 million in grant money to local food pantries, food banks and feeding programs – with the stipulation that the funds provided be used strictly for food.

That’s a lot of groceries.

“It has to be either food or disposable cutlery,” said committee chair Lee Mericle. “It only goes for those things and we’re pretty scrupulous about that.”

In 2010, the Hunger Fund gave out $51,500 to 12 area programs. Many are volunteer-run; some are operated by churches in the diocese and others are supported by them.

“We minister to the hungry in this area and the organizations that feed them,” said committee member Susan Nolan. “The money goes where the need is.”

“We review every request we’ve gotten, see how much money we have and give away as much as we can,” Mericle said. “We go through the requests, take a look at them and talk about them. Then we vote on it.”
The average grant is $3,000 to $5,000, and organizations are required to account for how they’ve spent the money. But during this recession the Hunger Fund has been struggling to keep up with the number of requests for help.

“The economic downturn is when we really started having trouble fulfilling the requests,” Mericle said. “When the economy tanked, the requests went up and were more urgent. We went through a period where we were getting requests and we could hardly fulfill any of them. We were having meetings where we could only give out $1,000 for a $5,000 request.”

Though things have improved a bit, “we haven’t gotten requests from some groups for a few years now,” she said. “They quit asking. I’d love to get them back. But I can’t call them unless the funds are there.”
“I have no doubt we could give away all the money we brought in,” she added. “We’re not in the business of having money sitting in the bank. That’s not what we’re for.”

The Hunger Fund is supported by donations from churches and individuals in the diocese and also with proceeds from two sponsored Hunger Walks it organizes each fall in College Park and Indian Head. A diocesan cookbook will be published later this year, with proceeds going to the Hunger Fund (see edow.org/cookbook).

Some congregations, like St. Stephen and the Incarnation, use dedicated collection envelopes for their contributions, while others designate a special monthly collection (Christ, Rockville gives the offering from its popular Jazz Vespers service). And donations are always accepted online, at edow.org/hungerfund.

“The original idea was a buck a month,” Mericle said. “The idea of a buck a month is that most people can afford $1 a month extra. Most people put a dollar of change on their dresser each night. If everybody in the diocese gave a buck a month, we could do so much… We could show the world and show ourselves that the Diocese of Washington cares about people in the diocese who do not have enough food.”

At this point, she said, “our income is a little over a buck a year.” In 2010, 23 churches contributed to the Hunger Fund. “It would be nice if it was 87, but we’re working on that!”