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Meal Six - 100 Mile Meal

Spotlight on United States

To find statistics for your community, or a community within approximately 100 miles of you, visit www.quickfacts.census.gov.

100 Mile Meal

Locally raised and produced food is good for the environment, local economies and your health. The less distance each ingredient travels to get to your plate, the less resources you consume! A study in Iowa found that a regional diet consumed 17 times less oil and gas than a typical diet based on food shipped across the country. Local eating can reconnect you with your food, your local farmers, the seasons and the landscape you live in. Create this meal using only ingredients that come from within a one hundred-mile radius of your town.

Printable Table Tent

Download and print this table tent, designed for the 100 mile meal. This table tent includes conversation starters and information about your gifts to ELCA World Hunger in action.
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Placemats

Download, print and use different placemats during your Lenten meals to raise awareness about hunger, poverty and related issues.

Program

This 30-minute program, specifically designed for the United States meal, contains a reading, litany, monologue, prayers and discussion questions.

Table Prayer
Good and gracious God, in the busyness of our days help us to not turn away from our neighbors in need. Grant us courage to stand with them, let our voice join with theirs, and let our actions reflect the example we have in your Son, Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Stories
Visit www.elca.org/hunger/stories and www.elca.org/domestichunger to find stories and information about ELCA World Hunger at work in your town, state or synod. Share these stories with those who attend your meal.

Local Recipes

For this meal, recipes will vary by location and will take research ahead of time. The only rule for this meal is that all of the ingredients must come from within a 100 mile radius of your town. For help, check out www.100milediet.org and www.localharvest.org.

Skip the Coffee. Feed the Hungry.

Many are familiar with the tradition of giving something up during Lent. Last year, Pastor Steve Biegner of Zion Lutheran Church in Clarence Center, N.Y., decided to add something to his Lenten tradition. For 40 days, he stopped drinking coffee. And in its place, he gave whatever money he normally spent to support ELCA World Hunger.

“What does giving up coffee have to do with my relationship with God?” Pastor Steve asked. “Nothing. But focusing on the problem of hunger does. It helps ‘enlighten my eye’ to the ongoing problem.”

He placed a large, empty pickle jar outside the sanctuary of his church and asked others to join him. Each day, members of the congregation would sacrifice their favorite morning beverage and save the money they would have spent. By Easter Sunday, the pickle jar was full of donations to help end hunger and poverty.