Homestead Ministries: Logos school helps in biggest event to date

Standing on a chair to reach the table, a first grade Logos student pours split peas through a funnel while an older student assists her.

Homestead Ministries has come a long way since their humble beginnings in Colfax 14 months ago.

Founders Tom Riedner and Greg Nolan led their ministry to assemble 120,000 soup packets in their first year, from Aug. 1, 2014, to July 31 this year. Now in their second year, they have already assembled 160,000 soup packages – well on their way to their 300,000 goal.

“At the rate we're going, we could get there,” Nolan said. “We could hit that by summertime.”

The yearly count for Homestead begins each Aug. 1 to coincide with the anniversary of the beginning of Homestead, meaning the 160,000 have been assembled in just under four months.

Thursday, Oct. 15, Homestead Ministries was at Logos School in Moscow for their biggest event to date – Feed the Need. Logos School students gathered in the gym from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. to package kidney beans, lentils and split peas, each with a spice packet also assembled by the students.

With the help of hundreds of Logos students, more than 12,000 soup packets were assembled and made ready for delivery to local food banks and soup kitchens and to be handed out as needs arise.

“You're looking at probably feeding 80,000 people with that,” Nolan said. “That's an awesome success.”

The goal for last week's event was to reach 15,000 soup packets. The Logos students last year assembled just more than 10,000 packets.

Nolan said he has already been able to deliver soups to LaCrosse and has a load heading to Lewiston and Clarkston.

Homestead recently received a second trailer to keep up with its growing ministry.

“About a month ago we obtained second trailer,” Nolan said. “We needed them both at the Logos event. We are very grateful for the donors for that.”

Nolan said the next Homestead event is Feed Spokane, which volunteers from Fairchild Airforce Base will assist with. He added that more events will be happening soon.

“We have between 10 and 12 to schedule that will go through the first of the year,” he said.