St. Mary's Pantry

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Angela Boyd and Jackie Lunsford Hear God’s Calling to Help Feed His Sheep

By Kerry Baldwin

St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, in downtown Jacksonville, offers several community services including their food pantry, providing food for 150 people each week who are disabled, poor, or homeless. 

Angela and Jackie share their love of God by volunteering as personal shoppers for the people St. Mary’s serves, helping them select groceries from the pantry including dry goods, meat, dairy products and snacks.

Angela has been volunteering at St. Mary’s for four years and Jackie for two. Both value the opportunity to serve the community, especially during COVID when lockdowns were creating cabin fever in both of them.

Per Jackie “I needed something during COVID - St. Mary’s kept me sane through that. At least this got me out of the house once or twice a week. It was a refuge.”

For Angela, being a stay-at-home mom raising two teenagers provided her path to St. Mary’s. Her oldest child, Wilson, needed to earn service hours for high school graduation and, along with her daughter, Sally, the family was looking for something to do together.

Volunteering as a personal shopper at St. Mary’s has satisfied Angela’s desire to do “meaningful work for somebody else. When we’re here our problems really don’t matter because their problems are so much bigger than ours. Jesus told us “Feed My Lambs” and when we’re here we are the hands and feet of Jesus.”

Jackie summed it up well: “It’s very fulfilling working with St. Mary’s. Our after communion prayer says “Send us out to do the work you have given us to do” and this is the work He has given me to do right now.”  

If you feel called to support the people served by St. Mary’s, you can do so in a number of ways. Besides on-site assistance (personal shoppers, pantry shelf stocking, grocery bag filling and even gardening,) the pantry accepts donations in the form of monetary, their Amazon wish list, and boxed and canned foods.

If you would like to learn more or can provide food donations, please contact the Ministries Coordinator at ministries@oursaviourjax.org.