Day 789: 5 Minute Freewrite: Wednesday - Prompt: vegetables

Rev. Baxter and Rev. Gordon were having a meeting that same day with Della Scott, wife of the commissioner of police, head of the Lofton County Seed Saving Society. She was a regular assistant with the battered woman's ministry, coming in once a week to bring local flowers and tea made of local herbs and spices for the ladies to add beauty and elegance back to their lives. But, there was something else she had wanted to bring to the two elders of the church …

“A lot of our growers that work with the Society this year have a surplus of vegetables,” she said. “It was a good year for heirloom crops overall, but fruit is sweet and people tend to splurge. Not so much for the vegetables, but it would be a shame for them to go to waste.”

“By all means – our healthy lunch box and battered women's ministries can use them, and if there are still more, we can set out a grocery stand,” Rev. Gordon said.

“Take what you need, donate what you want – how do we set up purchase orders and such?” Rev. Baxter said.

“Oh, the Society will purchase them – these are growers committed to us, so there is funding. The church is welcome, of course, to donate to the Society whatever it wishes.”

“Tell you what, Mrs. Scott,” Rev. Baxter said. “You've done a lot of work on our turf. We'd love to back your Society up where you have other events – even at police headquarters, where I know things have been rough.”

Mrs. Scott sighed.

“That will be Commissioner Scott's decision to make,” she said, “but I don't think he will object to some healthy lunch boxes for his officers from people bringing love and light to headquarters. God knows they need it, which is why the Society is over there.”

“It has been very dark for a long time,” Rev. Gordon said, his pearl-colored face growing more pale. “The things we have read in the news since the Gilligan House Burning, and since the Soames case broke … and since Lieutenant Deadwood set the Ridgeline Fire.”

“Sounds like the kind of situation we were called by the Lord to get off into to do some good,” Rev. Baxter said, and then smiled gently, his white teeth beautiful in the frame of his mahogany-colored face. “So, Mrs. Scott, how do we get into the commissioner's calendar?”