Thirty five years ago, Bill Bolling was the Director of Community Ministries at St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Atlanta.

At the time, Atlanta suffered from “white flight” as the affluent abandoned the city’s center.

Responding to the need he saw around him, Bill Bolling started a community kitchen in the basement of the church where he worked in order to feed the city’s homeless men and women.

As a Vietnam veteran, he was particularly moved to serve homeless vets.

The needs Bill faced were so great that he asked other churches to get involved.

He approached twenty churches in downtown Atlanta and promised to provide all the food if they would open their doors to those in need and offer assistance.

To his amazement, three churches agreed so Bill got busy seeking donated food.

His efforts grew to establish one of the first foodbanks in the United States, The Atlanta Community Foodbank.

Awhile back, Bill came to our staff meeting and shared his story with us.

I appreciated hearing his thoughts on sustaining a commitment to a life of service.

“Naivete is a good thing to start with,” he said. “It’s God’s grace that he doesn’t tell us how big the things we start are going to be.  We get up every day and try to do our best without seeing the larger arc of the struggle.”

As a small community of foodbank organizers from around the nation found each other, they decided to form an association in order to share ideas.

They formed an organization called Second Harvest that is known today as .

It was interesting to hear Bill talk about the tensions that can arise between a local and a national organization.  (Like , HandsOn Network is also a loose federation of local organizations.)

He reminded us of the strength in grassroots ideas, ideas generated from local organizations lifted up and taken to scale by the  national organization.

He cautioned us about the difficulties national programs can cause by not always being flexible enough to include or engage individual communities.

“Not every community will be interested or able to implement a program exactly the same way,” he reminded us.  “National programs should be flexible enough for local organizations to opt in and deliver services as appropriate.”

Bill went on to talk about the difficulties the foodbank is facing in today’s economy.

He’s seen a 35% increase in the demand for food and a 20% decrease in donations.

“Twenty five percent of the clients coming to the foodbank have never had to seek public assistance before,” he told us.

He said it was more important than ever for nonprofits to increasingly work in a networked way, connecting resources and making referrals for services beyond their usual scope.

While he was worried about meeting his community’s needs, he was also optimistic.

“Times like these are full of opportunity,” he said. “Young people today will see need in their communities, just like I did, and they will want to lead — and what a time to lead!  We don’t know what they’ll do, but we can help by re framing our challenges in a hopeful way.  We can help people see that the action they take will make a difference.”

Near the end of his talk, Bill discussed finding spiritual renewal in his work.

“You can’t do transformational work alone,” he said.  “You’ll burn out.  You’ll become cynical.”

Bill told us that he feels called to fight hunger and surrounds himself with people that keep him honest.

“You should always set the highest goals possible for yourself and your organization,”  he said. “But as an individual, you don’t have to measure up necessarily, you just have to stay faithful to the cause.”

Understand your work as part of your personal journey, part of your purpose in life, and it will provide the sustaining force, your true North.

Working in a community of others, ever faithful to the cause, you’ll get farther than you ever could alone.

Support your local community foodbank by contributing your time and resources.  .