Kingsland food pantry parting ways with church over ‘spiritual oversight’ request
Shelves full of prepared food donations line the Sharing the Harvest food pantry in Kingsland, ready to be handed out to Highland Lakes residents in need. The nonprofit will soon have to vacate its location after a disagreement with First Baptist Church Kingsland, which owns the property. Courtesy photo
Sharing the Harvest food pantry is leaving its longtime home at First Baptist Church of Kingsland due to a disagreement over how much spiritual input the church should have in pantry operations.
The busy nonprofit food pantry has been at First Baptist-Kingsland, 3435 RR 1431, since its founding in 1994 but was told on Sept. 21 it had until Dec. 1 to vacate church grounds.
This came after a lengthy back-and-forth between church and pantry leaders on the pantry’s terms of occupancy, which boiled down to Sharing the Harvest refusing to amend an agreement with First Baptist to ensure that 20 percent of the pantry’s board members came from the church.
According to First Baptist Senior Pastor David Henneke, the church wanted a written stake in Sharing the Harvest leadership to ensure the organization was in alignment with church values.
“Since (Sharing the Harvest’s) inception, we’ve always had a member from the church on their board,” Henneke told DailyTrib.com. “For us, it is more about having some oversight over what is happening on the property.”
However, Sharing the Harvest Executive Director Cynthia Green and the food pantry’s Board of Directors worried that the “spiritual oversight” in the proposed deal would conflict with the pantry’s mission and possibly jeopardize funding and support from federal and state sources.
“I’m grateful and I’m thankful (for the church’s longtime support); however, they have put what we do for this community in a very compromising position,” Green told DailyTrib.com. “We will overcome and continue to provide for the community.”
She said the pantry has no firm plans on where it will go now but that it will continue to provide food to clients until the Dec. 1 move-out deadline.
Sharing the Harvest was created by a coalition of local churches in 1994 and has always been based on First Baptist property, where it operated free of charge. It became a standalone nonprofit in 2016 and continued its free operations. While it was not a stipulation that a First Baptist member always serve on the pantry’s board, one did so until recently.
That board member stepped down over the summer, and in July, First Baptist proposed a change to the memorandum of understanding between the organizations to implement a policy that would have 20 percent, or two of the nine board members, be from the church.
Sharing the Harvest rejected the proposal, as it would be “unfair,” according to Green, to the other churches and organizations with which the pantry works.
“This is not a mission that is supported by any one particular church,” she said.
Sharing the Harvest countered First Baptist’s offer, requesting the church draw up a lease agreement with a payment to clear up the terms of the relationship. First Baptist proposed a lease of $4,500 a month—$1 per square-foot—along with language allowing “spiritual guidance” and “spiritual oversight” from the church.
Sharing the Harvest countered with a $2,000 lease and maintaining the current agreement, but the church rejected the offer.
“We certainly could not meet the proposed lease of $4,500,” Green said.
Pastor Henneke said the decision to end the church’s relationship with the pantry is not about the money.
“I love what they do, our community needs what they provide,” he explained. “But we simply can’t allow an outside organization to operate on our property (without any oversight). They could have countered with $1 a month, and it would have been fine. We were more concerned with the accountability.”
Green said granting the church’s request for spiritual oversight might have caused issues with funding and support from the Central Texas Food Bank and possible grant opportunities.
It also conflicted with her personal interpretation of Sharing the Harvest’s mission.
“If somebody is hungry, I don’t care if you go to church,” she said. “My prayer each morning is that His light will shine through me in all that I do, not in the words that hang over your church door.”