For the past 4 years, the children of First Church and the church’s Board of Christian Outreach have partnered to hold a food drive during the month of November to support our church's food pantry. This year the kids moved up their food drive to support Mission: 1. Last year they collected just over 300 items, so the goal of 1,111 seemed to be a pretty lofty one. They once again made designer grocery bags and passed them out to the congregation each Sunday morning for food collection.  Response has been overwhelming!  Not only has the church reached the 1,111 Mission:1 goal, but with 24 hours yet to go, First Church has have collected a total of 1,725 items. 

The food pantry in Elyria has been getting hit very hard by church neighbors, because of the economy. The goods the children collected had to go right to the shelves. One of the volunteers mentioned that were it not for the items that the kids collected on Sunday,  the pantry would have had trouble providing food to those in need.