A large group of Cross Sound Church members, led by two giant walking sandwiches, delivered several hundred donated jars of peanut butter and jelly to Helpline House last Sunday.

Between torrents of rain and wind, dozens of wheelbarrows, wagons and anything else that rolled were loaded to the brim and wheeled a few blocks from Bainbridge High School to Helpline House. The food donation was accompanied by a $1,000 check.

The food and money were part of a yearly event put on by the church; parishioners donate the money and supply the peanut butter and jelly. The children of the church then deliver the donations to Helpline. As an added incentive, if the church collected more than 200 jars of peanut butter and jelly, the pastors would dress as sandwiches to make the delivery.

“It is the nicest peanut butter and jelly costume I have ever worn,” Pastor Dave Sellers said. Fellow pastor Paul Schuler agreed, saying the costumes were both beautiful and aerodynamic. Neither man knew the total number of jars collected but there was well over 200.

The church started collecting donations of peanut butter and jelly at the beginning of August. Schuler said it started out with just two jars and each week the pile would grow. When the day came to deliver the food, the church celebrated with a peanut butter-and-jelly brunch for everyone attending. Then they gathered up the donations and set out to make their delivery. When they finished unloading all the peanut butter and jelly, the children got a tour of Helpline.

The goal of the “Peanut Butter and Jelly Parade” was to help the community and teach the children a lesson in helping neighbors. The parade is the final lesson in the children’s study of Jesus Christ feeding the 5,000. “Jesus multiplied lunches and we would like to multiply lunches in our community,” said Jamie Brouwer, a youth coordinator for Cross Sound Church.

She organized the event and supervised the nearly 30 children who helped bring the donations to Helpline. In preparation for the parade, the children were asked to write letters and draw pictures describing what they wanted everyone in the community to have. The answers ranged from food and clothing to brown, fuzzy bunnies.

While there were relatively few bunnies on hand, the children were able to give enough food to provide many of their neighbors with a good meal.

“The lesson for kids was that even if it seems like people have everything, there are still needs in our community and they can still affect change,” Brouwer said.

Giving food is just one of the service projects the church has planned. It has a project every quarter, with the next charitable event focusing on house building in Tijuana, Mexico. The children will collect money in milk-carton banks, which in turn will help fund the houses.