HIGHTSTOWN: Church will feed volunteers and homeless

By Christina Whittington, Special Writer
   HIGHTSTOWN — On Saturday evening, over 100 homeless people living on the streets in New York City will have a meal prepared and delivered to them by volunteers from the Hightstown-East Windsor community.
   To accomplish this, The First Presbyterian Church of Hightstown is hosting a Mission Outreach BBQ Praise Concert at 5 p.m. Saturday.
   ”We will begin with a BBQ, but at the BBQ we are going to ask people to help us make 100 sandwiches,” said Mary Maleski, the church’s director of Children, Youth and Family Ministries.
   The sandwiches will be put into a brown bag with a juice drink, something sweet to eat and a piece of fruit.
   The church’s Young Adult group, consisting of members who are 18 to 30, will deliver these bagged meals to the homeless by partnering with the organization Midnight Run. Ms. Maleski estimated about 15 of the 20 to 25 members will be making the run.
   According to the organization’s website, “the Midnight Run is a volunteer organization dedicated to finding common ground between the housed and the homeless. Midnight Run is not a solution to homelessness. Our goal is to forge a bond between housed and homeless people by establishing a foundation of sharing and caring from which solutions may evolve. Through Midnight Run, volunteers come to see the homeless as real people, not a commodity. And homeless men and women learn that many mainstream adults and teenagers have committments and concerns that go beyond their own lives and families. The late-night relief efforts create a forum for trust, sharing, understanding and affection. That human exchange, rather than the exchange of goods, is the essence of the Midnight Run mission. “
   Originated in 1984 by a Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, New York, Midnight Run currently does over 1,000 mission reliefs per year.
   ”Our young adults will leave here after the Praise band concert around 9 p.m. and they will meet up with someone from the Run and that person would of probably of been homeless himself and they have come off the streets because Midnight Run has been so successful. They know where the homeless are and they may even know these people,” said Barbara Heck, the church’s interim pastor.
   ”The good ones (volunteers from Midnight Run) know how to articulate the culture of the street to those of us who are giving food out,” continued Pastor Heck. “ The real point of the run is to have conversations, human conversations. They (the homeless) are usually walked by, cursed at or they are spit on.”
   This is the first time that the First Presbyterian Church of Hightstown has participated in the Midnight Run, but Pastor Heck has done quite a few.
   ”When I first did it (the Midnight Run) I was running through the subways of New York City screaming, ‘The Run is Here!’ and the homeless on the street know what the run is,” said Pastor Heck.
   ”They (the homeless) know they are going to get food, they know they might get socks, they might get a blanket, they might get a bag and they know they are going to get a good conversation with somebody if they want it,” continued Pastor Heck.
   ”It is very sobering to see people sleeping in boxes,” she said.
   According to Pastor Heck, the Midnight Run usually makes four to five stops. “Anything that is left over, the last stop is Penn Station.”
   The cost per person to attend the Mission Outreach Praise Concert is $10 per person and students are $5.
   ”All the money we make at the concert will go towards our Youth Mission for next year,” Ms. Maleski said.
   According to Ms. Maleski, every summer the youth group goes on a mission trip. The group recently returned from Walpole Island in Canada.
   ”We worked on a Native American reservation,” she said. “We worked on homes, built porches, built wheelchair ramps, painted and cleaned some homes.”
   Though the destination has not been decided for next summer’s Youth Mission Trip, two possible destinations have been mentioned. “We are thinking about staying more local within an hour to two- hour drive. We might go into Philadelphia to work on homes or Keansburg, New Jersey,” she said.
   According to Ms. Maleski, hunger is something that the First Presbyterian Church of Hightstown works hard to combat.
   ”Every Monday evening, from 4:30 to 5:30, we have a community dinner where we feed people in the area. Some of them are homeless, some of them are working needy, some are just families to help them through the week,” she said. “”According to Ms. Maleski, at the community dinner on July 30, 138 meals were distributed.