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www.BraseltonNewsToday.com
The Braselton News
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
“It was really hard to concentrate on everyday things ” while hungry. Doing routine things, like working or going to
school “must be very hard ” if a person is hungry. - West Jackson Middle School sixth grader Wesley Christiansen
Works on food line
Wesley Christiansen, a West Jackson Middle School student, works on the food line Saturday morning at the iServe distribution in Commerce.
Sixth-grader raises money for 39,000 lbs. of food
By Ron Bridgeman
The Lanier Tech parking lot in Commerce was full
Saturday morning by a few minutes after 7 a.m.
The crowd was there to get a cart of food, distribut
ed by iServe, a ministry established by two couples
to help those who need it.
The food came from a tractor-trailer that was
loaded to the gills. The truck, from Food Bank of
Northeast Georgia, is at the parking lot the second
Saturday of each month. (Another trailer goes to
Pendergrass the third Tuesday of each month.)
Wesley Christiansen, 12, sixth-grader at West
Jackson Middle School, raised the money for this
trailer and its 39,000 pounds of food.
Jeff Grant, one of the iServe founders, said Wesley
raised about $850.
A truckload will provide food for more than 300
families, Grant said.
Wesley said he started the fundraising because of
the “difference makers” project at Gum Springs Ele
mentary School. Students may do a science project
or a community service project. Wesley chose com
munity service. “I like helping people.”
Libby Christiansen, his mother, said, “He’s always
been a ‘noticer’ helping anybody that’s been in
need.”
He said his project first was going to be on world
hunger, but that seemed a bit broad, and more than
a little daunting.
“I realized people in our county are struggling
today,” he said. He thought he would do something
Grant and Christiansen
Jeff Grant, one of the iServe founders, is shown
with Wesley Christiansen, who recently raised
money for food donations.
“where I live.”
As part of the project, he fasted for 12 hours, to get
a sense of feeling hungry.
“It was really hard to concentrate on everyday
things” while hungry, he said. Doing routine things,
like working or going to school “must be very hard”
if a person is hungry, he said.
Grant told the crowd the food distribution is “two
hours of controlled chaos.”
Volunteers scurried around the parking lot like
ants. Pallets were unloaded and spread out. Onions
were put in grocery bags, broken down from larger
sacks.
Several churches had groups of volunteers work
ing. Ages of volunteers were from 7 or 8 into the
70s.
Food included nonperishables like cans of black-
eyed peas and beans and included milk, eggs, bread,
juice and a variety of fruits.
Asked about fasting again to know the feeling of
hunger, Wesley said, hesitantly, that he would do it
again.
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