Food cans collected for Christian Service Center in Abbeville

After seeing shelves mostly bare, workers at the St. Mary Magdalen Christian Service Center received a recent boost.
Students at Vermilion Catholic and members at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church in Abbeville recently held a food drive that netted more than 2,000 canned goods and other food.
“This is a much needed blessing,” said Deacon Randy Hyde, who runs the service center. “We were really down to nothing.”
Reba Broussard, a faculty member at Vermilion Catholic, helped organize the drive. She said the effort falls in line with the school’s mission.
“As you enter the halls of Vermilion Catholic,” Broussard said, “you see above the doors a sign that says ‘Enter to Learn Christ and Leave to Serve Christ.’ We try very hard to instill this into all of our students through our theology classes and service projects.
“The can food drive was one of our most recent projects.”
Students collected canned goods throughout the month of September.
“As an added incentive, we challenged St. Mary Magdalen Church Parish to compete against us,” Broussard said. “As a result the final total of can goods collected by VC was 1230.
“Though we won the challenge, the true winners were the needy of the parish.”
The center, located on Chevis Street in Abbeville serves all of Vermilion Parish. The center has given away more than 650,000 pounds of food this year. It gave away 618,000 pounds in 2013.
“Every bit helps,” Hyde said of the VC/St. Mary Magdalen donation. “This is going to help us tremendously.
“We are so gracious for the help that we receive.”
While anyone interested can help, there are a couple of upcoming events that will directly benefit the Christian Service Center.
The annual Food Net food drive will take place on Dec. 2 at the Winn Dixie in Abbeville.
“That is always a big thing for us,” Hyde said.
The upcoming Giant Omelette Celebration will hold it’s charity walk on Saturday, Nov. 1. That event raised more than $9,000 for Christian Service Center.
Linda Woodruff, one of the walk’s organizers, spoke to the Abbeville Kiwanis Club about the event, as well as her experiences volunteering at the Christian Service Center.
“I started there in 2006 and I have been touched by so many of the stories of those in need,” Woodruff said.
The walk started seven years ago, bringing in $3,200 in 2008, a number that helped the Christian Service Center purchase a cooler.
“They still use it today,” Woodruff told the Kiwanians with a big smile. “It has helped them keep so much more food and help many more in need.”
Woodruff also referenced an experience of a friend who recently made a personal donation to the center.
“My friend went to the center during the summer to make a donation,” Woodruff said. “She saw that there was nothing there. They had nothing left because they had run out of food. She brought three boxes of canned goods. There was someone who walked in and the center was able to give something because she had brought those boxes of food.
“She told me she was very moved by that.”
The Kiwanis Club made a move Tuesday to play a part in helping the walk, which will go to help the center. Club members voted to make a donation to the charity walk and presented a check to Wooodruff.
Whether it is from the walk, the food drive in December, drives such as VC’s or someone simply donating personally, Hyde said it all adds up to the center’s lifeblood.
“These kinds of things are essential to what we do,” Hyde said.