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The Fond du Lac Seventh-day Adventist Company has been active in Community Service work since 2014 by reaching out to those who are in need through Panera’s Day-End Dough-Nation program. We began the program at the end of 2014, with only one day of pick up on Sabbath mornings, but soon added a second pick up day early in 2015. In the early years we had lots of bread, bagels, and desserts to repackage before taking them to different community outreach organizations such as Advocap, women’s shelter, senior center, and food pantries.
Since Covid however, we have not been able to get as much bread to repackage for those who are in need, but there have been times that we have been asked to pick up more bread throughout the week in addition to our regularly scheduled days. We have continued to find places within our community where people are in need of the bread and pastries we have repackaged. God has blessed us with this ministry for the past eight years and we are looking forward to doing His work in the Fond du Lac community until His coming.
Yet, as a Community Service leader, there was a burden on my heart that the Fond du Lac Company was not reaching out to our community as much as we should be. We have been doing small services, like repackaging the Panera bread and pastries, but I did not feel we were doing enough to make a difference. So, I asked Alice Garrett, Adventist Community Services Coordinator for Wisconsin, to come to speak to our church early in the spring of 2022. After potluck she went over ideas for what we were and could be doing for our community. Then ideas just started to flow!
The second quarter of this year, beginning in April, we started to collect items for the new Homeless Shelter that is being built here in Fond du Lac, WI. During the entire second quarter, members brought items that were on the need list which I found on the internet. The picture below, shows what we collected for the shelter. We do not plan to stop with this! Each quarter our plans are to collect for a different project. For the third quarter of 2022 we are collecting kids school supplies and then we will decide on another project for each quarter after that.
It is our hope that through our efforts, our community will get to know who we are.
Article and pictures by Vickie Mally, Community Service Leader, Fond du Lac Company