Feed The 5,000 actually fed about 5,600 people in Detroit Lakes in June

Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – The results are in from Christian Fellowship Church’s Feed The 5,000 campaign and the numbers, as well as, the generosity of many of the vendors did not go unnoticed.

The week-long free meal event in June gave away more than 5,600 meals, 400 more than their last event eight years ago.

Pastor Tim Rice said the outpouring of support and volunteerism from the lakes area was incredible to witness. He also added, before the event, organizers were thinking about adding music to the event and he is so happy they decided against it because many conversations at those picnic tables wouldn’t have happened.

“I’m so grateful that we didn’t because people just sat there and had conversation after conversation,” said Rice. “And, (with the community) there were two things that stuck out. Number one they couldn’t believe the free meal.  But the second that really jumped out for people was just the unity. We were seeing churches working together, people working together, but there’s just this fellowship that’s going on around the table and we just have not seen this like this.”

He also said, once the vendors realized their food was going to be given away by church members, invoices quickly turned into donations to the worthwhile cause.

“Another company we bought water from, 3,000 bottles of water, ‘well, that’s a lot of water, what are you going to do with it?'” he said. “So we told them, ‘oh, well, just come pick it up,’ they donated it.”

The church held their official de-brief meeting from the event last week, and, Rice said, many of volunteers told him that serving meals to the community filled them up and made them proud to take part in such a positive campaign.

“Across the board people said they just appreciated so much being able to serve our community,” said Rice. “That just filled them up. They got the blessing from serving people, so we just want to express our gratitude to the community for coming out and being part.”

He also said so many people wanted to help during the event that they needed to turn volunteers away.

Rice said Feed The 5,000 will probably take a year or two off, so the event doesn’t begin to feel stale like an annual family reunion. But, he added, they fully expect to hold another Feed The 5,000 event in the future.