Conoly and I visited Inspired Vision Church yesterday in the Pleasant Grove area of Dallas, a community in much need. Pastor Karen Belknap is founder and manager of what I believe is one of the most compassionate missions I have witnessed in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. Although Pastor Karen has established several A+ Charter Schools, which now boast a 100% graduation rate. She and several of her adult children have committed over the past three years to feeding the hungry in their community. They have served over 75,000 so far this year. In their relatively small church building, with the support of 75 volunteers (they could sure use more), they are open from 9am to 5pm weekdays, EVERY week, to receive fresh produce and other food products from commercial supporters and then turn around immediately to distribute to community folks in need. It is essentially an “outdoor” distribution process, but I’m assured it meets Health Department requirements. They are in desperate need for more storage space (like a warehouse!) and refrigeration to keep produce fresh longer. Nothing is wasted. Pig farmers come at the end of each day to take away any leftover organics. They also have “clothes closets” if you can call the storage areas that, in the small rooms of the church building. They also receive other “throw away” items from several retail stores, which they graciously accept and in turn give away to the poor. They just received a load from Walmart; the fellowship room was “wall to wall with stuff!” – good stuff I might add – which Pastor Karen says will be gone by the weekend…. 🙂  For the past several holiday seasons the church has been “Santa” to a lot of kids in the area, serving increasing numbers of kids each year. They plan to be Santa to over 2000 this year. They have lots of presents already stored up!

Conoly and I were invited by the Rev. Dr. Todd Collier, Director of Food Source DFW (www.foodsourcedfw.org) a program of the Memnosyne Institute, to meet with Pastor Karen, to tour Inspired Vision while they were in the midst of their daily intense food distribution routine with the community, and to see what is needed by our larger DFW community to support such a critical mission. Todd has been working with Pastor Karen since 2013, and gets truckloads of fresh produce donated weekly through his work with FoodSourceDFW. We met in the sanctuary of the church after the tour and talked about how Compassionate DFW, Food Source DFW, the Memnosyne Institute, and Inspired Vision might partner with each other to enhance support of the mission. From our discussion my impression is that Inspired Vision has the verbal support of the County Commissioners, the City Council and other Pleasant Grove area leaders. That was good to hear.

Definitely an inspired and worthy mission!…. So, here are some of the needs: more volunteers (contact Pastor Karen Belknap, inspiredvisionchurch@gmail.com); land that belongs to Inspired Vision is available, but help is needed with design, materials, and construction of a grocery-store- like facility with warehouse storage and refrigeration. Of course funds are needed. Hopefully our generous DFW volunteerism and intentional compassion will meet many of these needs and will move us all closer to that ideal of peace and well-being for all.

C.O. Barker MD

Be sure to follow Inspire Vision Church and their efforts on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InspiredVisionChurch/