Trick or Treat drive successful

Our Trick or Treat So Others May Eat food drive was held the week before Halloween, and I want to thank all of the youth groups and food donors who made this annual event another great success.

Forty-one youth groups from churches and other organizations worked hard to pass out donation bags in neighborhoods and then collect the donated food a week later. When all the donations had been brought in, the youth group from Neel Road Baptist Church was the winner of the “Heavyweight Trophy” for the most pounds of food collected.

Nearly 19,800 pounds of food was collected this year and will meet the needs of food pantry clients through Thanksgiving. Thank you to these special youth and food donors who are helping to feed approximately 500 families through their efforts and contributions.

Hunger affects too many families in our community. One out of five adults and nearly one out of three children in Rowan County live in poverty and often don’t have enough to eat.

Everyone can have a role in fighting this serious problem. You can provide financial contributions so that we can purchase food needed for our Food Pantry. You can donate food for our pantry or organize food drives at your place of work, church, school or other organizations. You can volunteer to stock shelves and pack groceries for clients in our Food Pantry or you can volunteer to pick up food donated by local grocery stores and restaurants.

Right now, we have a critical need for food pantry volunteers and volunteer drivers to help us serve the increased number of clients needing help during the holidays. If you can lend a hand now or after the new year, please call our Food Pantry volunteer coordinator at 704-637-6838, ext. 117.

Thank you for helping us care for our neighbors in need under the Rowan Helping Ministries’ banner.

— Nate Valentine

Valentine is food manager at Rowan Helping Ministries.

Evangelicals for Trump

The writer is responding to a letter in Monday’s Post, “Does Trump really stand for evangelical values?”

Guilty as charged! Eighty-seven percent of evangelical Christians were in fact a very large component of the vote that elected our 45th president. To Mr. Smith’s point, Donald Trump is not perfect. But something that his letter failed to point out in his fair and unbiased opinion: we, as evangelicals, need to vote for those who are most likely to promote our deplorable agenda.

In making our decision, we have factored in such issues as late-term and partial-birth abortions. Secretary Clinton was in favor of this. President-elect Trump is pro-life. Since the babies couldn’t vote, we redneck evangelicals figured it was our job to protect these children.

It is strange how we evangelicals feel like the term “religious freedom” is being applied to every other religion and cult other than Christianity. We have just come through eight years of having more and more of our freedoms taken away. And Secretary Clinton was one of the movers and shakers in this administration. Maybe, just maybe, we are tired of the abuse and want someone to stand up for us.

Is President-elect Trump the answer? No, Jesus is. However, until He returns, we will continue to fight the fight every day and, as the Rev. Billy Graham has said, “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.”

— Pete Harvey

Faith