Courtesy of Alan Fulkerson

Vickie Richards and Connie Hill shop for the Salem Food Pantry at the Spartan Square Kroger.

Fellowship Community's parishioners spent half of their Sunday service on Feb. 8 out of the sanctuary. They weren't skipping church -- they were at the Salem Kroger, Wal-mart, and Food Lion shopping for the Salem Food Pantry. Trucks and vans were outside each store, so that they could be loaded and taken to the pantry the next day. The Spartan Square Kroger even had extra cashiers to handle the church's shopping.

The effort collected 13,807 pounds in one day.

"If you give people the opportunity to give, they'll respond," said pastor Ken Nienke.

And Fellowship Community responded in a huge way. For their annual food drive last year, Alan Fulkerson placed grocery bags on each seat in the church, and they raised around 4,000 pounds of food, he said.

"I just know that if you ask for things for a food drive in a school or a church, they'll go in the cupboard and grab a couple of cans," Fulkerson said. New member Rick Jacobs brought the new idea from a church he'd visited in Florida. For church members who were recently laid off or were having financial troubles, there were $10 gift cards for them to participate in giving.

"They had no idea -- they knew the topic of the service, the purpose statement was worship, walk, and witness," Nienke said. The service was over in half the usual time, and that's when the pastor and worship leader called upon the members to serve where they live.

Next year is Fellowship Community's tenth anniversary, and they're planning ten different missions trips abroad. The key verse for getting the members amped up about giving where they live was Acts 1:8, which is also a challenge for Southern Baptist churches to help out the communities in which they live.

"The verse says 'in your own Jerusalem' and that's Salem and Roanoke for us," Jacobs said.

Eagle Scout project marks Mowles Spring Park's course

Once a landfill and now a cross country course, Mowles Spring Park is in use again, and Zach Johnson's Eagle Scout project is making it easier for local cross country teams to use the trails.

"I wanted to see what I could do to get Mowles Park back on the map," Johnson said. "This is literally 100 feet from my back yard."

He was really excited to have a forest and a creek behind his home, a big change from his life when their family's home was closer to downtown Salem.

"I knew that the Salem and Roanoke cross country teams ran back here," Johnson said.

He took his idea to John Shaner and others in Salem, and they started to throw around ideas -- two of which were terracing an unstable hillside and placing posts to direct 5K runners. In the city's 2003 comprehensive plan, there is much mention of repurposing the former landfill into recreational uses for the city.

With concrete parking blocks cut in half, an auger, and other tools from the city as well as some help from other scouts in his troop, his lacrosse friends, and even help from two Belgian foreign exchange students, the work was done.

Ten directional markers will guide runners around the turns for the 3.1 mile course next fall, making it that much easier for cross country coaches to run home meets at the park.

Yellow means straight, red indicates a left, and blue indicates a right turn.

A steep hill, nearly 150 meters long, on the course now has concrete steps, so that it remains navigable when it rains.