“My dear, I think we need to open early.” I hear the urgency in her words before Jamie, Holy Trinity’s incredible office manager, reaches my office door. It is the first day of the first annual School Supplies Giveaway (2019) and she has been fielding calls all day from desperate people asking if they could pick up early.

I glance at the entrance outside and see the cars filing into the parking lot. We walk quickly (Jamie only has one speed), to the far south entrance and see the line of people through the glass. Nearing the door, we realize the line stretches down to the sidewalk. And into the parking lot full of cars. We still have forty-five minutes until our stated opening time. 

“We don’t have enough stuff.” I whisper to Jamie. But beyond praying for a loaves-and-fishes-type of miracle, there is nothing more we can do. 

Walking into the rooms covered in neat piles of notebooks, backpacks, pencils, Crayons, Clorox wipes, and tissues, I ask the volunteers, “Everyone OK if we open early?” They nod nonchalantly. Most of them are retired teachers and have stared down the crush of incoming parents and students for years. Of course they are ready. They were ready last week. We open early. 

Crowds of parents, guardians, and children come flooding in. The kids run first to the table full of backpacks to pick the most colorful or the one with their favorite superhero. They are gleeful and excited, their eyes lighting up with what they will get to use all year. The parents and guardians work their way methodically through the school supplies list (handed out by the volunteers because, you know…they rock).

A parishioner stops by to drop off more materials. Seeing we have very little left, he offers to run to a store for us, returning with bags of supplies. “I took all the wipes and Kleenex I could find!” he announces to the full room buzzing with families. 

A woman with three children in tow comes up to me. “Thank you so much for this help,” she says, her voice wobbling with emotion. “My husband just lost his job.”

“Can’t thank you enough,” an older man tells me quietly. “We were just given custody of our grandchildren and we couldn’t have afforded this….” he trails off, gesturing to the backpacks full of needed items.

“It was either school stuff or rent this year.”

“We’ve just had a really hard year.”

“My wife got hurt and the medical bills put us back a lot.”

In September 2019, the Missions Team gathered to write plans for 2020. We vowed to allocate more money from our budget, lengthen the school supplies drive around town, and involve Vacation Bible School more. We promised to be even more prepared in 2020.

But in September 2019, who could have predicted the upheaval of COVID-19? What will school look like in Fall 2020?

A few months ago, the Missions Team began asking ourselves: How do we help this community and others without endangering them and transmitting the virus throughout multiple communities? How could we fill a room with people when crowds are dangerous? How do we collect supplies from the congregation when contact makes them vulnerable?

So this is our COVID-19 School Supplies Giveaway Drive-by Plan: Tim Miller will direct traffic in the parking lot while Dennis Tietz makes sure we don’t hold up traffic on Highway 19. Marge Larsen, Amber Kahnke, Lydia Popple, and Pastor Diane Goulson and I will be masked and handing out bright blue bags of pencils, papers, Expo markers, and highlighters. 

HUGE THANKS to the School Supplies Team of 2019: Audrey Austin, Mary Hanson Busch, Mary Eagan, Linnea Hautman, Liz Nelson, Sande Schoenecker, and Laurie Thorpe. Your work was inspirational..

Thank you to the Missions Team: Audrey Austin, Pam Edel, Linnea Hautman, Amber Kahnke, Marge Larsen, Timothy Miller, Liz Nelson, Julie Popple, Sande Schoenecker, Dennis Tietz, and George Winn.

Thank you to the Endowment Committee for the grant and being another team behind the missions of HTLC.

Finally, Thank You Always to the congregation and staff for your donations and continued support of Holy Trinity’s missions! 

Now, seriously…. send up those prayers.