Growing In the Vine Ministries is a small church looking to make a big difference. The church, located in Hendersonville, TN, currently has less than ten adult members, and recently started an outreach program called “Loving Our Community.” They hosted their first event, a Youth Night, late last month in a local neighborhood.

Nicole Jones, the children’s teacher for the church, was both excited and shocked at the turn out. “We didn’t even know if people would show up. There ended up being over 70 kids! They were thrilled and seemed very thankful for the food. We ended up running out of food and kids were coming back wanting seconds,” she said.

After speaking with the children and parents who attended the Youth Night, Nicole and others from the church determined that when summer starts, lack of food and childcare will be major issues for these particular families to overcome.

Growing In the Vine Ministries has developed some solutions to these pressing issues, according to Nicole. “I had the idea to make snack bags, so the kids have a reserve snack stash in case the food ever gets low! I will use gallon bags and stuff them with all types of snack items such as crackers, granola bars, applesauce, and chips.”

The church has already received enough volunteers to help pack the snack bags that will be handed out each month, but they are asking for monetary donations to purchase the food and supplies for the “Loving Our Community” outreach program. You may donate using the QR code at the bottom of this article through Cash App. 

As far as childcare, the church plans to create a list of local summer camps that are free or low cost. “We are an 8 adult member church, and we don’t have the resources ourselves to take on childcare (for the neighborhood),” says Nicole. 

If you know of any free childcare or are interested in starting a free child care program within this specific Hendersonville community, please reach out the church at Inthevineministries@gmail.com or at (615) 647-6874. 

The kindness of just a few has already begun to change over 70 people’s lives for the better, and you could be a part of it too! 

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