By John Kriz
New Canaan’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church for short, or colloquially the Mormons) held its huge, annual food drive late last week. Three tons – 6,000 pounds – of food was delivered to the New Canaan LDS Church, which had been trucked in from Utah, much of it produced on LDS Church-owned farms.
Church members took responsibility to ensure that the donated food was delivered to the receiving charities. A large truck full of food boxes was parked in front of the church after Sunday services, with church members — especially children – loading up cars for ‘last mile’ delivery.
The New Canaan Food Pantry, which is housed at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, received more than half a ton of food from New Canaan’s LDS Church. The rest of the donated food went to other local food banks and charities.
Donated items ranged from refried beans to cake mixes, rice, peanut butter, tomato sauce, pasta, flour, pancake mix and jam.
In addition, ‘family boxes’ of food were put together to go directly to New Canaan LDS Church members in need.
Chris Bailey, who led the food drive, said “we do it so that our kids can see the gospel of Jesus Christ in action, and understand we don’t just sit in the pews and listen to sermons.” Bishop Allen Zimmerman, the New Canaan LDS Church’s senior clergyman, echoed that thought, stressing as well that sometimes the service focus is within the church community, and other times “it’s like, no, no, no. We need to be much bigger than that. And we touch everyone that we possibly can, and the community becomes a big focus.”
