If people care enough to do this for me, then maybe I am worth caring about…”  The words of a woman in Belfast who has been handed a free hamper of groceries - all thanks to the kindness of random strangers she will never meet…

She’s one of 2,400 people across the city who have benefited in the last year from one church’s vision that no-one in Belfast should go hungry - and now, at Christmas, they’re intensifying their efforts…

Storehouse, as the initiative has become known, is spearheaded by Belfast City Vineyard.  It all began through a church visit to the US in 2007 when they saw a similar programme in action.

“It really broke our hearts,” says associate pastor Alan Carson, “We watched them just throw open the doors and people came to get fed.”

So from that seed of a vision, a Storehouse venture was launched in Belfast in March 2008. The project now brings together over 50 charities, community groups and churches across the greater Belfast area to provide emergency food parcels for the most vulnerable in our city.

It depends on individuals and families from those churches and community groups purchasing extra groceries each week and keeping the storehouse well stocked.  And this Christmas they are stepping up efforts to meet the needs of poor families in Belfast, attempting to gather in two months of food in just one day as part of ‘The Big Christmas Give’.

“We never meet the people,” as Alan explains, “because the charities pass the food on to families they have identified. But we just think it’s the heart of Jesus that no-one in the greater Belfast area should go hungry.  We had just heard too many stories of people having to choose between heating and food.  And when I read the Bible I almost think God is bias towards the poor.”

The project is growing, as Alan explains: “We’d been limited by our office before, we couldn’t bring in food in bulk but we prayed a lot and asked a lot – and a Christian businessman approached us to say he had a free warehouse we could use.  This gives us the space to grow and the chance to take it to the next level.

“I guess my heart would be that we wouldn’t need big corporations in this, that the Church in Belfast would be the Church.  But at every stage God has provided beyond what we could imagine.”

And the stats really do speak for themselves – 2,400 people fed through the project since its inception, that’s 530 families provided for - and 9 tonnes of food shifted!

Other churches have joined with Vineyard in this project, but they’re keen to see even more people on board.  Alan says it’s a need that is on our door-steps: “We’re comfortable with sending aid to Africa, but while people here in Belfast may not be dying of poverty some of them are certainly not getting to live.”