Southern Wesleyan students share food with homeless, needy
Jackie Tubb, left, and Zach Derr assemble bag lunches at Southern Wesleyan University before delivering them as part of the LOT Project, a ministry that serves homeless or needy children in Anderson, S.C.
The program, started by recent Southern Wesleyan graduate Matt Beasley, was nicknamed “waste to taste” because students donated part of their unused meal plans to it.
When Beasley began mentoring a boy from an organization for children of incarcerated parents, it sparked a ministry that reached out to others.
“The Lord broke my heart,” said Beasley, a recent Southern Wesleyan University graduate majoring in youth ministry. “I started taking the boy to church. He started inviting friends. Next thing I was borrowing a van, then a Suburban and then asking God for bigger provision. Then someone donated a bus to the ministry.”
Jackie Tubb, a rising senior majoring in communication at Southern Wesleyan, said students there don’t always use all of their meal credits, so they can designate unused meals to feed the needy. Tubb also expressed gratitude to Karl Ekberg, director of Aramark Dining Services at Southern Wesleyan, for making the donation of meals possible.
Since the beginning of the spring semester, students have been packaging meals every two weeks. According to Beasley, the ministry serves bag lunches on Tuesdays to 70 to 100 people ranging from 3 to 75 years old.
“We have a building, 302 West Market Street in Anderson, S.C., on the edge of downtown,” he said. “We give away clothes. We have a thrift store that gives away washers, dryers, beds, clothes and everything that people donate.”
Financial donations have been intermittent and the group has not done much fundraising, but Beasley said he trusts that the Lord will provide.
Now that he has graduated from Southern Wesleyan, Beasley plans to devote himself fulltime to the LOT Project.
“We have big plans for the future,” Beasley said. He added that he is trusting God for a salary and praying for a bigger building for office space for the project.
For details, go to www.theLOTproject.com or e-mail
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