Photos and story submitted by Gerry Cass, Pierre Southeast UMC

PIERRE, S.D.—Southeast Pierre United Methodist Church is a mission congregation that serves a diverse group of people in a high need area of Pierre, S.D. Many of the residents struggle with getting their basic needs met like food and clothing. This is especially tough for the children.  Southeast Pierre UMC reaches out in many ways to the neighborhood. During the holidays they had some special activities at Busy Bees and also distributed sack lunches to children during the Christmas break from school.

The Busy Bees program at Southeast Pierre Community Center meets on Wednesday nights from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.  Adult volunteers from Pierre Southeast Mission United Methodist Church, Pierre First United Methodist Church,  as well as members of the Pierre community come to play and eat with the kids. Games, play dough, cars, Legos, crafts, art supplies and other activities are available for the kids to choose to do with the adults. The kids love the attention and some nights the ratio is one adult for every two kids.

Before Christmas, items were donated so the kids could select some to wrap as gifts for family members. Boxes, wrapping paper, ribbons, tape and adult volunteers were ready for them. It was a busy night with 29 Busy Bees wrapping gifts. It is one of the favorite activities during the year.

This year a donation was received for Christmas for the Busy Bees. Each child received 20 quarters, a red balloon, candy cane, a little football for the boys and a deck of cards for the girls.  The children were excited because they have not been given gifts in the past years.  “We feel that the best gift that can be given to the Busy Bees is attention from a caring, loving adult,” said Gerry Cass, Southeast Pierre UMC.

Southeast Pierre Mission United Methodist Church delivered 415 sack lunches to neighborhood children during the Christmas break from school.

The children in the southeast Pierre neighborhood receive daily breakfast, lunch and a backpack when school is in session. During the Christmas break, these sources of food are not available.

Volunteers prepared an average of 59 sack lunches for each of the seven days. For three days, they received a hot meal of spaghetti and meatballs, tater tot casserole or macaroni and cheese.  Each lunch included chocolate milk or juice, fresh fruit, cookie, bread and butter or a sandwich such as ham and cheese, and a couple of snack items.  On Friday, the lunch also included cereal, white milk and Ramen noodles for the weekend.

The lunches were delivered to 15 households. The kids are excited to hear the knock on the door and those delivering would hear, “YES!” or “It’s lunches!”  There were lots of “Thank you” especially when tater tot casserole was on the menu or one of the other hot meals.

Cass said, “This was the first time that the church did lunches during Christmas break. We have had the sack lunch program during the last three summers with volunteers preparing and delivering sack lunches to the neighborhood children. During the summer of 2016, the total was 4,483 that was an average of 76 lunches each day.”