• Church would ask each member to commit to donating 3 or 5 cents per meal to a bank they would keep at their table all year long (either by family member or family as a whole).
• The idea of Cents-Ability is that each Presbyterian would develop a discipline of thinking about people who are hungry within our Presbytery each time they sit down to eat. This small gesture over a year could amount to $100 or more.
• Banks would also be put out at every church meal for this growing fund.
• At the end of the year the money is brought to church and celebrated, counted and a check sent to the Presbytery who will donate the grand sum collected at each church as a whole to Second Harvest Food Bank in Santa Clara, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties and the Monterey County Food Bank on behalf of the Presbyterians of the Presbytery of San José.
• We will celebrate our collective contribution to this effort at the Presbytery meeting in December, 2005.
• Pat Plant, the Presbytery’s Hunger Action Advocate will be available for Moments for Mission, Children’s Sermons, hunger-related events and bible studies all year long.

• In addition to other activities we do to help the local poor, help some more!
• To increase generosity to and support of hungry people who live in the area of our Presbytery.
• To unify the Presbytery around one common, simple activity
• To perhaps begin a tradition repeated annually

• Cents-Ability is one of the best designed and marketed projects of the Presbyterian Hunger Program. Besides the banks, there is a bible study, worship and promotion ideas available.To learn more, visit their website at: http://www.pcusa.org/hunger/resources.htm.
• Many Presbyteries do this simple activity year after year and find it unifies their churches around a common purpose, is fun, easy and helps their local food banks which are often desperately in need of funds to feed a growing population of hungry people.

PROMOTION IDEAS

• Be sure and have extra banks ready for church meals to add to your fund.
• Make Cents-Ability posters for your bulletin boards.
• Have a Hunger 101 activity (Pat Plant, Hunger Action Advocate can explain in detail; its an interactive event put on by staff of food banks) to help people understand how hard it is to be poor and the many challenges many of our neighbors face looking for enough to eat.
• Do a skit one Sunday where someone slowly drops pennies into a clear glass jar as hunger statistics are read linking money to helping with hunger (statistics available from the Second Harvest:
• (http://www.2ndharvest.net/c_about/statistics_01.html) and Monterey County Food Bank (http://www.food4hungry.org/contact_us.htm) websites.)
• At an event have big clear glass jars available to put their change in and encourage people to “empty their pockets.”
• Enlist children to count and wrap the change or take a field trip with children to the local market where they have a change counting machine and enjoy the noise as the change is counted.
• Make and display a Cents-Ability banner in your Sanctuary or Fellowship Hall.
• Get Church School, Presbyterian Women, Youth and Adult Education involved.
• Invite Pat Plant, your Hunger Action Advocate for the Presbytery (408- 737-7370; patplant@comcast.net) to do a Moment on Mission on Cents-Ability sometime during the year.

 

NEWSLETTER BLURBS

(feel free to customize, change in any way)

 

Cents-Ability Banks available Sunday after worship and in the office

This year we are asking each individual and family to consider donating [three-five] cents to a bank on the kitchen table every time a meal is served. Why are we asking this? We ask that you do this to focus on the fact that we have a table to eat at, that we have good food to eat and that right here in our area, many do not. By the end of the year we will collect your banks (or the money you have saved) and pool it with other churches across the Presbytery of San José to donate on behalf of all our forty-four Presbyterian churches and their members to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey County Food Bank to help buy food for the many hungry people who live within our Presbytery. 

 

SO you know how much power a penny has?

- 14 pennies will provide 1 pound of food from a food bank (which can obtain food at below wholesale prices.)

-  69 pennies will buy a can of soup to feed 2 people a hot meal.

- The Food Banks can provide a complete meal for 2 people with $1

- 2000 pennies will provide a bag of food to feed a family of 4 with meals for 3 days.

- If one person put 5 cents into his Cents-Ability bank at 3 meals a day for 365 meals a year that would equal $100.00!!

- If our  congregation of 250 people (as an example) donated 5 cents per meal at each of 3 meals a day for a year that would equal $13,687.75!! Now that would go a l-o-n-g way to helping some hungry people in our area!

 

 

MORE IDEAS for Cents-Ability education, worship, and promotion:  Get the Cents-Ability Notebook available from the Presbyterian Distribution Center (PROMOTION IDEAS

• Be sure and have extra banks ready for church meals to add to your fund.
• Make Cents-Ability posters for your bulletin boards.
• Have a Hunger 101 activity (Pat Plant, Hunger Action Advocate can explain in detail; its an interactive event put on by staff of food banks) to help people understand how hard it is to be poor and the many challenges many of our neighbors face looking for enough to eat.
• Do a skit one Sunday where someone slowly drops pennies into a clear glass jar as hunger statistics are read linking money to helping with hunger (statistics available from the Second Harvest:
• (http://www.2ndharvest.net/c_about/statistics_01.html) and Monterey County Food Bank (http://www.food4hungry.org/contact_us.htm) websites.)
• At an event have big clear glass jars available to put their change in and encourage people to “empty their pockets.”
• Enlist children to count and wrap the change or take a field trip with children to the local market where they have a change counting machine and enjoy the noise as the change is counted.
• Make and display a Cents-Ability banner in your Sanctuary or Fellowship Hall.
• Get Church School, Presbyterian Women, Youth and Adult Education involved.
• Invite Pat Plant, your Hunger Action Advocate for the Presbytery (408- 737-7370; patplant@comcast.net) to do a Moment on Mission on Cents-Ability sometime during the year.

 

NEWSLETTER BLURBS

(feel free to customize, change in any way)

 

Cents-Ability Banks available Sunday after worship and in the office

This year we are asking each individual and family to consider donating [three-five] cents to a bank on the kitchen table every time a meal is served. Why are we asking this? We ask that you do this to focus on the fact that we have a table to eat at, that we have good food to eat and that right here in our area, many do not. By the end of the year we will collect your banks (or the money you have saved) and pool it with other churches across the Presbytery of San José to donate on behalf of all our forty-four Presbyterian churches and their members to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey County Food Bank to help buy food for the many hungry people who live within our Presbytery. 

 

SO you know how much power a penny has?

- 14 pennies will provide 1 pound of food from a food bank (which can obtain food at below wholesale prices.)

-  69 pennies will buy a can of soup to feed 2 people a hot meal.

- The Food Banks can provide a complete meal for 2 people with $1

- 2000 pennies will provide a bag of food to feed a family of 4 with meals for 3 days.

- If one person put 5 cents into his Cents-Ability bank at 3 meals a day for 365 meals a year that would equal $100.00!!

- If our  congregation of 250 people (as an example) donated 5 cents per meal at each of 3 meals a day for a year that would equal $13,687.75!! Now that would go a l-o-n-g way to helping some hungry people in our area!

 

 

MORE IDEAS for Cents-Ability education, worship, and promotion:  Get the Cents-Ability Notebook available from the Presbyterian Distribution Center (PROMOTION IDEAS

• Be sure and have extra banks ready for church meals to add to your fund.
• Make Cents-Ability posters for your bulletin boards.
• Have a Hunger 101 activity (Pat Plant, Hunger Action Advocate can explain in detail; its an interactive event put on by staff of food banks) to help people understand how hard it is to be poor and the many challenges many of our neighbors face looking for enough to eat.
• Do a skit one Sunday where someone slowly drops pennies into a clear glass jar as hunger statistics are read linking money to helping with hunger (statistics available from the Second Harvest:
• (http://www.2ndharvest.net/c_about/statistics_01.html) and Monterey County Food Bank (http://www.food4hungry.org/contact_us.htm) websites.)
• At an event have big clear glass jars available to put their change in and encourage people to “empty their pockets.”
• Enlist children to count and wrap the change or take a field trip with children to the local market where they have a change counting machine and enjoy the noise as the change is counted.
• Make and display a Cents-Ability banner in your Sanctuary or Fellowship Hall.
• Get Church School, Presbyterian Women, Youth and Adult Education involved.
• Invite Pat Plant, your Hunger Action Advocate for the Presbytery (408- 737-7370; patplant@comcast.net) to do a Moment on Mission on Cents-Ability sometime during the year.

 

NEWSLETTER BLURBS

(feel free to customize, change in any way)

 

Cents-Ability Banks available Sunday after worship and in the office

This year we are asking each individual and family to consider donating [three-five] cents to a bank on the kitchen table every time a meal is served. Why are we asking this? We ask that you do this to focus on the fact that we have a table to eat at, that we have good food to eat and that right here in our area, many do not. By the end of the year we will collect your banks (or the money you have saved) and pool it with other churches across the Presbytery of San José to donate on behalf of all our forty-four Presbyterian churches and their members to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey County Food Bank to help buy food for the many hungry people who live within our Presbytery. 

 

SO you know how much power a penny has?

- 14 pennies will provide 1 pound of food from a food bank (which can obtain food at below wholesale prices.)

-  69 pennies will buy a can of soup to feed 2 people a hot meal.

- The Food Banks can provide a complete meal for 2 people with $1

- 2000 pennies will provide a bag of food to feed a family of 4 with meals for 3 days.

- If one person put 5 cents into his Cents-Ability bank at 3 meals a day for 365 meals a year that would equal $100.00!!

- If our  congregation of 250 people (as an example) donated 5 cents per meal at each of 3 meals a day for a year that would equal $13,687.75!! Now that would go a l-o-n-g way to helping some hungry people in our area!

 

 

MORE IDEAS for Cents-Ability education, worship, and promotion:  Get the Cents-Ability Notebook available from the Presbyterian Distribution Center (http://www.pcusa.org/hunger/resources.htm) or by phoning  1-800-524-2612.)