St. Susanna’s Peanut Butter Ministry Spreads Love to OTR
The next time you pack your lunch for work or put together a lunchbox for your child or grandchild, imagine what this would look like on your kitchen counter:
- 700 ounces of peanut butter
- 500 ounces of jelly
- 65 loaves of bread or buns
- 100 drink boxes
- 100 pieces of fruit
- 100 servings of cookies or snacks
- 650 plastic sandwich bags
- 100 baggies for cookies/snacks
- 100 oversized lunch bags
That’s what parishioners at St. Susanna in Mason use each week to prepare lunches and snacks for guests at St. Francis Seraph Ministries (SFSM). Since about 1987, the parish’s Peanut Butter Ministry has provided more than a million meals to help nourish our neighbors in Over-the-Rhine.
Every weekend, volunteers make 750 PB&Js to be delivered on Monday and distributed as sack lunches along with a drink box, a snack and/or a piece of fruit, and an inspirational note. That’s 39,000 sandwiches in a year! But St. Susanna isn’t stopping there.
The parish is now working to deliver an additional 350 sandwiches on the third and fourth Wednesdays of the month.
“God has a way of kind of tugging at our heart, and then our heart starts to open, and then the next thing you know, you’re doing more than you ever thought you could do,” says Roberta Brunck, who leads the ministry for St. Susanna.
Roberta has a complex job coordinating volunteers to donate and pick up supplies, make sandwiches, assemble bags, write personal messages to our guests, and deliver the finished product to SFSM. “It’s a huge ministry,” she says. “Only God knows who all does everything.”
There have been more than a few times over the years when Roberta has thought she wouldn’t have enough food, enough money, or enough help to make the weekly delivery happen. But, she says, through the power of the Holy Spirit, everything somehow comes together. It’s like the fishes and the loaves … but with peanut butter and jelly!
Roberta says one thing that makes the ministry so popular at St. Susanna is that anyone in the parish can participate, right from the comfort of their own home. Even small children can get involved by decorating the lunch bags and notes.
The ministry also provides an opportunity for volunteers from the suburbs to use their gifts to make a difference in a part of town they might not know much about and where they might not spend much time.
“It’s a great ministry to get your big toe in the water and find out that ministry isn’t so hard,” Roberta says. “New volunteers find out there’s so much more that can be done. That’s how God works. He makes us ready for whatever the journey’s going to be. We just need to be open to it.”
St. Francis Seraph Ministries has lots of volunteer opportunities that you, your family, your parish, or your workplace can get involved in. Email Volunteer Service Director Susan Walsh at swalsh@sfsministries.org or call 513-549-0542, ext. 284, to learn more.