SUBMITTED BY THE PORTNEUF VALLEY INTERFAITH FELLOWSHIP

POCATELLO — Feeding the 5,000 Families food campaign, an annual interfaith effort to combat hunger in the community, begins with a kickoff concert Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. in the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 309 N. Garfield Ave., Pocatello. This is the 15th anniversary of the concert.

There will be musicians and singers from different faith communities. The program will begin at 6:45 p.m.

There will be a welcome from the Rev. Janie Gebhardt from the First Congregational/ UCC as well as an opening prayer. Greetings will be from the cochairs, Dawn McLauglin and Karla Reynolds. Scripture reading will be from Laura McKnight from Holy Spirit Catholic Community. The 2012 theme song will be from Norma Boyd, accompanied by Marilyn Alldredge.

There will be remarks from Joye Jones, manager of the Idaho Foodbank, a song, “Beautiful Savior,” from Reflections, an interfaith choir, a song, “When God Unfolds the Rose,” from the Rev. Seth Mena from the Real Apostolic Church, a song, “If that don't make you want to go,” from Claudette Hartle, “Christian Caprice,” cello solo, from Sophie Spreiers and Noah Smith, LDS, a song, “Prayer of the Children,” from Soundscape, ecumenical, a song, “Take Up the Cross,” from Joyful Noise from the Presbyterian Church, “Prelude in Fugue,” organ performance, by Derek Schaible from the First Congregational/UCC, a song, “Because I have been given much,” by Sydney McOmber, J.D. Packer, Bree Schmidt LDS, and a song, “The Lord's Prayer,” by Mike Sanders, Grace Lutheran.
 
The program will end with a closing prayer.

The concert is free and open to the public. If you can, bring a can or box of food for the Idaho Foodbank. The concert will be followed by punch and cookies.

The food drive runs from Feb. 25 through April 16. Theme this year comes from Hebrews 13:16 that says, “Do not forget to do good and share with others.”
 
For more information, call Dawn at 238-3540 or Karla at 637-0293, or visit www. feedingthe5000.org.

By Eniko Jordan For the Idaho State Journal

POCATELLO — This year’s Feeding the 5,000 campaign to benefit the Idaho Foodbank in Pocatello came to a successful close on Tuesday, as the donations of both finances and food were about equal to last year’s donations, according to Karla Reynolds.

Reynolds is one of the co-chairs of the program’s coordinating committee, along with Dawn McLaughlin

“It looks like we did about on par with last year,” Reynolds said. “Last year we had about $12,000 in donations, and a lot of food. I think we did about that much this year.”

   With the last of the financial donations still to be counted in the coming days, Reynolds said she feels good about their success this year. The campaign, now in its 14th year, was held from   Feb. 26 through May 2.

   McLaughlin cited a few examples of some improvement in this year’s results.

   “We did a little better in the grocery stores,” she said. “We received $300 dollars more than last year at the grocery stores.”

   McLaughlin was referring to the collection boxes for both funds and food items that were placed in area grocery stores on the Saturday before Easter.

   “We also had more churches contribute this season, than we did last season,” she said. “We did very well, considering the economy. It was a success. The people of Pocatello are real givers.”

   The Feeding the 5000 campaign is sponsored   by the Interfaith Council, which is made up of representatives of various churches in the Portneuf Valley. All of the proceeds are given to the Idaho Food Bank in Pocatello to benefit needy families in the area. 

   Reynolds has participated with the food drive for four years.

   “The thing I really like about it is that it’s an interfaith effort. We do it because we know it’s a need in our community, and all   the food goes to people in our community,” Reynolds explained. “It’s a way to act out our faith.”

   To find out more about the Feeding the 5000 program, visit  www.feed   ingthe5000.org  .

POCATELLO — The 14th annual Feeding the 5,000 Families food drive will be celebrating its closing of this year’s food drive on Monday, May 2. It will be held at the Idaho Food Bank, 555 S. First Ave. beginning at 5:45 p.m. The closing celebration is free and open to the public, but if you can, bring a can of vegetables and a can of chili to contribute to the Mulligan stew being cooked by Dutch-Oven Delights, that will be ser ved after the program.

The program will begin with Blazing Grace Church providing free music for praise and worship beginning at 5:45 p.m. Randy Robinson from Christ Love Vineyard will offer the opening prayer. A welcome will be made by the Feeding the 5,000 co chairmen, Dawn McLaughlinm LDS and Karla Reynolds, Grace Lutheran. Remarks from the Idaho Food Bank will be given by Joye Jones and Roy Lacey. Norma and Kraig Boyd, LDS, will sing our theme song for this year, “Be ye kind to one another.” Debra Shein, Temple Emanuel, will give a scripture reading from the Old Testament. The ecumenical group Reflections will sing “Joy in the morning.” There will be a Feeding the 5,000 re-enactment by children from area faith communities. The closing prayer and blessing on the food will end the program.

Come and help us celebrate the end of a successful year and begin looking to our 15th year

.

BY MICHAEL FARNWORTH    For the Journal April 10, 20111

POCATELLO— The Feeding the 5,000 Families Food Drive’s 14th annual progressive dinner took place Saturday evening in Pocatello.    Jolene Barnett-Stephens has helped with the drive for several years. 

“(Rep.) Roy Lacey told me a couple of years ago, that our interfaith food drive is the longest running, in the entire country,” Barnett-Stephens said.    She added that Lacey had told her that most interfaith food drives only last a couple of years before they end.     

“It is definitely the community of Southeast Idaho,” Karla Reynolds said. Reynolds has been co-chairwoman of the annual drive with Dawn McLaughlin for the past two years.  

 “We’ve had complete strangers walk up to us,” Mclaughlin said. “They tell us that they had gotten help from the food bank a few years before, and now they want to pay it back by helping out. Then they either donate food, or money, and some just donate their time, which is just as great.”  

 The annual “Feeding the 5,000 Families Food Drive” begins in January and runs through May, and includes different events throughout the four-month period.   Many community churches get involved.  

 “This year I’ve dealt with 23 different churches that are helping out in some way,” Mclaughlin said. “Plus almost every church that we talk with has some kind of collection bin within their doors that collects food from their congregation and then brings the donations to the food bank.”  

 “For example,” Reynolds said, “The Central Christian Church has a shopping cart sitting next to the door that people place food into every week.”  

 The two women are involved with a committee that meets with the food bank on a weekly basis to discuss what the biggest need is. The committee, which is made up of men   and women from several different churches, then take that information back to their churches, and on Sunday the church lets its congregation know which foods are most needed for the next week.  

 Saturday’s events kicked off at station 1 in the First Presbyterian Church at 202 S. Seventh Ave., where appetizers were served. Station 2 featured soup and salad at the Central Christian Church at 918 E. Center St.    At 6:30 p.m., patrons made their way to the LDS Caldwell Park Building at the corner of E. Lewis and Seventh Ave., where the main dish was served. To finish off the night, desert was served at the Holy Spirit Catholic Community’s St. Anthony Chapel at 504 N. Seventh Ave.    

 More than 125 people showed up for the moving four-course menu that raised $15 per person and $25 per couple, with all proceeds going to the Idaho Foodbank.  

 “We strive every year to improve,” Reynolds said. “Last year we were able to raise over $13,000 and 23,000 pounds of food when all was said and done. We were a little afraid this year with everything else that has been going on in Pocatello lately, but the community has proven themselves just as they always do, and by looking at ticket sales at the door, we are going to be able to do as much, if not more, than last year.”  

 To begin this year’s drive, the opening concert had   results comparable to 2010 by raising $600, and 320 pounds of food.

MICHAEL FARNWORTH/IDAHO STATE JOURNAL   

Participants in the “Feeding the 5,000 Families” progressive dinner enter Station 3 for the main dish on Saturday in Pocatello.

IDAHO STATE JOURNAL Saturday April 2
SUBMITTED BY FEEDING THE 5,000 FAMILIES

POCATELLO — Feeding the 5,000 Families food drive, the longest-running interfaith food drive in the United States, is celebrating its 14th year with a progressive dinner Saturday, April 9. It is a major fundraiser for the campaign, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the Idaho Foodbank.

What a great way to help out the local food bank, enjoy tasty meals and support the campaign. Starting at 5:30 p.m. participants begin the dinner at First Presbyterian Church, 202 S. Seventh Ave., where you can enjoy a full plate of appetizers. Follow that with soup and salad, hosted by Central Christian Church at 918 E. Center St. The main course will be at 6:30 p.m. at the LDS Caldwell Park building, corner of East Lewis Street and Seventh Avenue.

The evening ends with dessert served at Holy Spirit Catholic Community’s St. Anthony’s   chapel at 504 N. Seventh Ave.

Other faith communities taking part in the dinner include Grace Lutheran Church and Trinity Episcopal Church. Students from the Idaho State University dietetics program also will take part this year. Music will be provided at each venue. 

Tickets are $15 each or $25 per couple, with proceeds going to the Idaho Foodbank. Tickets will be sold before the dinner but there will be a limited number of tickets available at the door.

Karen McCall and Linda Jones launched Feeding the 5,000 Families 14 years ago   as part of a series of Sunday school lessons at First United Methodist Church. The classes traced the life and teachings of Christ. McCall said when it came to feeding the 5,000, the teachers decided to get the community involved.

 Eight local churches signed on that first year. Feeding the 5,000 Families food drive had collected 1 million pounds of food by its 10th anniversary. McCall said the dinner was the brainchild of Eric Brown, former pastor at United Methodist Church.

About 20 local churches are involved in the annual food drive that continues to May 2. For every $1 donated to the food bank, that means the food bank can provide 3.89 pounds of food, $6 worth of food and   offer three nutritious meals.

Theme this year is “Be ye kind to one another,” from Ephesians 4:32.

For more information, go to  www.Feedingthe5000.org   or call Dawn, 238-3540 or Karla at 637-0293.

POCATELLO — On Saturday April 2, at 7 p.m., local musician Robert Talbot will present “Klezmer Then and Now.” 

  This tour of the mysterious roots of klezmer music, along with an energetic performance of its magnificent melodies, will include pieces not heard in centuries. The concert, an historic premier of lost musical treasures expressing the soul of Jewish life, is being performed as a benefit for the Idaho Foodbank. It is held in association with Pocatello’s annual “Feeding the 5,000” campaign and the 50th anniversary of the building of the Pocatello Jewish Community Center (Temple Emanuel), where it will take place. Donations to the Idaho Foodbank in amounts as generous as possible (cash or check) are requested in lieu of admission. Reservations are not required.    

  Klezmer as we know it today is the traditional lively dance music and the expressive instrumental music — sometimes laughing, sometimes weeping —of eastern European Jews, adapted by Yiddish-speaking immigrants to the United States and later artists. Talbot’s klezmer melodies have been heard by Pocatellans at the First Friday Art Walk, which he organized and ran for more than a year. But “Klezmer Then and Now,” featuring the results of the artist’s painstaking research into the music’s roots, will offer a truly new look at the genre based on his discoveries.    

 It will include a sampling of the musical traditions of the many cultures of the Ottoman, Russian, and Hapsburg Empires, as well as their adaptations in America. From 15th-century Spain to Broadway musicals, Talbot offers a new and fascinating look at the unfamiliar roots of both klezmer and modern music.  

 Talbot, who has great enthusiasm about the upcoming concert, spoke about it recently in his comfortable office overlooking the hills outside of Pocatello. Volumes of loose leaf binders with thousands of pieces of music and cabinets full of published music fill the room. Instruments tucked into corners, along with thousands of LPs, tapes, and CDs of everything from classical to zydeco add additional interest. A couple of music stands wait at-theready   as well.  

 “You never know when someone will drop in and want to play duets,” says Talbot, “and what’s a music room without music stands?”   

Although most who have heard something of klezmer think that they can readily recognize its sounds, there is a big debate in the musical world as to what tunes actually should — or should not — be included under the heading of “klezmer.”  

 To seek out the story of the tradition’s origins and thereby attempt to find a better definition of what really deserves to be called klezmer today, Talbot consulted the research facilities of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, the Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archives, and the National Library of Israel, among other   sources. 

 “The funny thing,” Talbot muses, “is that all this research I’ve been doing has been to answer the question, ‘What is klezmer?’ Is it mournful music played by a sobbing violin, or wild dance music played by a screeching clarinet? Most of us can’t define it, but when we hear it we say ‘that’s klezmer, or that’s Jewish music.’ It’s like blues, or Cajun, or Big Band Swing. We know it when we hear it, but we have to be able to define it so that we can find more of it.”     

During the first part of the performance, Talbot will speak of his discoveries while illustrating them with examples played on the gusle, cimbalon, and a type of caval, as well as on the accordion. “These are all instruments that have been played in Eastern Europe for 500 years,” he explains, “and they shaped the music that we now call klezmer. I also included bagpipes until I reached version eight of my talk, when I was able to obtain ten volumes of archival material published in the 1920s and dating back to the 1880s. I’m on version 14 now, and am trying to find a balance between history and the excitement of the music   .”   

He explains that the music he will play incorporates melodies, harmonies, and rhythms that met at the crossroads of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Sephardic Judaism in Eastern Europe, beginning in 1500 and continuing today on YouTube. “It is getting to be an old story,” Talbot relates, “but personal computers and the digitization of historical records is radically changing the depth of research available, even here in Pocatello. I have found, and downloaded, at least ten thousand pieces of music that were formerly only available if a person went to New York City or Tel Aviv or Odessa, and then sat   for weeks in a library, blowing dust off books that hadn’t been opened in a hundred years.”  

 In the second part of the performance, a real klezmer extravaganza, Talbot’s playing will include music that hasn’t been heard in two centuries outside of the villages in which the songs were composed. “The first half of the program prepares the audience,” he explains, “opens their ears, so that they can appreciate the background of klezmer music, the music played by Jewish musicians for all faiths. Then, an hour or so of absolutely spellbinding rhythms and melodies that will rock the house. Or, in this case, the temple.”   

Robert Talbot demonstrates how the melodies traveled from Spain to the Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece, ending up on Broadway. Samplings from   all of those wells of musical creativity will be included to make for a truly unique evening. Enjoy the opportunity to step out, be charitable, and have fun all at the same event. The performance will be filmed for distribution on DVD. Light snacks and beverages will be available.   

Temple Emanuel is located at 306 N. 18th Ave. in Pocatello, one block north of East Clark Street. Call 232-4758 for additional information.

On Saturday, April 2, at 7 p.m., local musician Robert Talbot will present “Klezmer Then and Now” at Temple Emanuel in Pocatello. The event is part of Pocatello’s annual “Feeding the 5,000” campaign and the 50th anniversary of the building of the Pocatello Jewish Community Center (Temple Emanuel).










Submitted Photo

The kick off concert for Feeding the 5000 was held Saturday, March 12 at the First Presbyterian Church in Pocatello. The concert featured a number of performers from 14 different faith groups. Steve England, mayor of Chubbuck, and Brian Blad , mayor of Pocatello attended and issued a joint proclamation declaring the support of both cities. Joye Jones, Manager of the Eastern Idaho Food Bank moderated the program, citing facts about hunger throughout the program. Norma Boyd, again lent her talents to the cause and sang the theme song she wrote for this years campaign, "Be Ye Kind to One Another". It was an inspiring program, with close to $600 and 310 pounds of food were collected for the Idaho Food Bank. This time of year, the Food Bank typically see's it's donations decrease.

SUBMITTED BY PORTNEUF VALLEY INTERFAITH FELLOWSHIP
POCATELLO — The annual Feeding the 5,000 Families kickoff concert will be held Saturday, March 12, beginning at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, located at 202 S. Seventh Ave., Pocatello.

There will be 14 performances from different faith communities in the Southeast Idaho area who are now more than happy to share their talents. Theme this year is “Be ye kind to one another,” from Ephesians 4:32. 

   Performances will be from Tristan Krusoff, Temple Emanuel, Jacob Huston, Holy Spirit Catholic Community, Dorithy Frandsen, I am a Disciple, Suite 212, ecumenical, Kraig and Norma Boyd, LDS, accompanist Marilyn Alldredge, LDS, Kevin and Cheri DeWall, Central Christian Church, First Presbyterian Church Choir, Joe Marley, LDS, Bethel Baptist Singers, Derek Gregerson, Living Waters Church, Misty Roberts, LDS, accompanist Laura McKnight, Holy   Spirit Catholic Community, Joyce and Loren Weaver, First Presbyterian Church, Russell Fagnant, Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church and Trinity Episcopal Church Choir.

   There will be proclamations by Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad and Chubbuck Mayor Steve England.

   At the concert the welcome will be by a member of the First Presbyterian Church, followed by opening prayer provided by Lynda Montgomery, First United Methodist Church. Greetings came from Co-Chairs Dawn McLaughlin, LDS, and Karla Reynolds, Grace Lutheran Church.   Remarks will be given by Joye James, branch manager of the Idaho Foodbank,

   Ephesians 4:32 will be read by Peter Moore, Baptist Church. The concert will be followed by refreshments served in the Whitman Room in the basement of the church.

   For more information, call Lynda at 233-3229 or the church at 232-3439. Information is also available at  www.feed   ingthe5000.org 
 .

2/26/11 BY JODEANE ALBRIGHT     jalbright@journalnet.com 

     POCATELLO — Now in its 14th year, Pocatello’s Feeding the 5,000 Families food drive will kick off today with a community event. It will be held at Pocatello’s First Presbyterian Church, 202 S. Seventh Ave., beginning at 7 p.m.    The service is a way of highlighting and encouraging Pocatellans to take part in the drive, which will run through May 2. This year, as in every year, the need is great to get enough food to the hungry.    Readers for this special   service include Laura McKnight, Holy Spirit Catholic Community, Dawn McLaughlin, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Lynda Montgomery, First United Methodist Church and Melissa Norton, First Presbyterian Church.    At the service there will be prayers, Scripture readings, music, an opportunity for silent meditation and there will be videos from agencies that focus on the hungry, including Bread for the World and the Idaho Foodbank. There will also be displays in the chapel of the church.      Planning meetings for Feeding the 5,000 Families began in January and they meet every Thursday at noon at the Idaho Foodbank, 555 S. First Ave. in Pocatello.    Pocatello’s Feeding the 5,000 Families is the nation’s longest-running annual interfaith event to raise awareness and receive donations to feed the hungry. All proceeds to go the Idaho Foodbank. Cocaptains in 2011 are Dawn McLaughlin and Karla Reynolds.    Items most needed are high-protein food such as canned chili, beans, meats   and soups as well as personal care items including soaps, toilet paper, combs, Band-Aids, brushes, toothpaste and toothbrushes, hair care items, feminine hygiene items and disposable diapers.    However, baby food cannot be accepted.    You can help the Feeding the 5,000 Families program by donating food to your church or to the Idaho Foodbank, and at local participating credit unions. Monetary donations are accepted as well. The food bank can buy several dollars worth of food for every $1 donated.

Journal File Photo

Attendees at a previous year’s Feeding the 5,000 Families fundraiser load up on food. This year’s Feeding the 5,000 Families food drive will kick off today with a community event. It will be at Pocatello’s First Presbyterian Church, 202 S. Seventh Ave., starting at 7 p.m.