2015 Plans and Outlook– Celebrating 30 years of sharing
It was in 1985 that Ila and Hollace Sherwood first read an article about hungry children needing what was then called high lysine corn in their diets. That spring they planted the first few acres of corn and the first shipment was in that fall. This year we hope to celebrate 30 years of corn being shared around the world. In 2014 BHRP sent out 4,320 bags of corn making the total bags provided to mission groups 163,072 over the years.
The harvest in the fall of 2014 produced about10,000 bushels of high-protein corn. That equates to approximately 14 full loads of corn available for distribution compared with 7 loads last year. As always we are contacting our ministry partners to determine their needs and capabilities during 2015.
Ministry needs for the current year are in two areas: First, will be for volunteers to assist in corn bagging operations. Several of our faithful volunteers (mostly retired men) are no longer physically able to participate in the bagging. We are praying that God will raise up a new wave of volunteers to help carry on the work. As part of the celebrating our 30 years we are looking for 30 groups of volunteers to come and bag. A group usually consists of about 6 to 10 individuals bagging for 2 to 4 hours. We are very flexible on dates and time of bagging.
In addition this year we are looking for a church (or churches) that would be in position to do a “complete cycle” corn project. That would involve bagging most or all of a 700 bag load, provide the transportation costs for their chosen mission, and sending a team from their church to help with the distribution. Certainly a major undertaking, but we believe that God still does great things through His people.
The second area is the challenge created by the ever-increasing cost of corn production. Fertilizer and herbicide costs are increasing. As part of the celebration of our 30 years we are looking groups or individual to be part of “30 bags for 30 years”. The corn bags are usually shipped on pallets which hold 30 bags. So with the cost of corn production being about $5.00 per bag or $150.00 a pallet, we are hoping for individuals to fund a pallet. We continue to develop additional funding sources to help with financing on-going operations. With these funds we have we hope to continue to provide corn to mission groups at no expense and they then provide the funds for the transportation of the corn to their missions.
During the coming year we would be glad to share the vision of BHRP with our friends and supporters. We have a Facebook page and a web page. We hope this fall ( maybe October 3, 2015 ) to have a community celebration of 30 years of sharing. We will be posting more information at a later date on the web page and Facebook.
Please contact Brian Sherwood at bsherw52@gmail.com or Warren Crawford at wscraw4d@gmail.com if you would like to volunteer to bag corn or would like for us to come and share with you or your group about BHRP. Contributions can be sent to P. O. Box 1023, Bedford, IN 47421.
In the last 30 years Bryantsville Hunger Relief Project has grown from Hollace and Ila saying they would do what they could in a small way to help feed hungry people. The members of the board of BHRP, the Sherwood family and those who volunteer hope to continue for the next 30 years to send corn to feed the poor and the destitute in the name of Jesus.
Note: The last 2 pics are in Burkina Faso, Africa
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Burkina Faso Burkina Faso Burkina Faso
