Deacon Stephen Jackson is Blessed by Giving

NTFB celebrates the impact of one of its partners during Black History Month.

It’s mid-afternoon on a Thursday and Deacon Stephen Jackson is standing at the ready.

The pantry at Community Missionary Baptist Church’s Cedar Hill campus is stocked and Deacon Jackson, along with a few faithful volunteers, are waiting to assist neighbors as they come in to pick up groceries for the week.

“Our mission is to take care of those who are less fortunate,” Deacon Jackson says. “We’re the hands and the feet of Jesus Christ.”

The church launched a mobile pantry in partnership with the North Texas Food Bank in 2020 and now hosts monthly drive-through distributions at its DeSoto and Cedar Hill campuses as well as regular shopping hours at both locations’ indoor food pantries. It’s not unusual for them to serve 400 families during a drive through and more than a dozen each afternoon at their pantries. 

“We don’t want this to look like a pantry,” Jackson says, walking along the line of shelves holding canned goods, pecans and other shelf-stable foods. “We want to give them exactly what they get at the grocery store.”

To further that mission, Deacon Jackson applied for and received an NTFB grant that will support the larger pantry they’re constructing. The grant covers new freezers, shelving, shopping carts and other items meant to increase the church’s capacity for service all while providing neighbors with a more dignified experience.

“We’re going to have more room when we expand, because we’re seeing more people now than we were during the pandemic,” he says.

Supporting his neighbors as a career was not always something Deacon Jackson saw for himself. Though a longtime church member, Jackson spent the bulk of his career in the corporate world, working for years as Director of Operations for Minyard Food Stores.

Community Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Oscar D. Epps Sr. asked Jackson in 2018 if he would consider putting the business acumen he’d honed to use for the community.

“So here we are,” Jackson says, with a smile. “I have more money in the bank now making less—it’s about the work you do.”

He said it’s the shepherding and vision of Pastor Epps that makes the work possible. And it’s work that impacts those around them.

Darlene, 74, says she’d never been to a food pantry in her life but found during retirement that she and her husband, who is disabled, need a little help to make ends meet. She says Deacon Jackson and the volunteers always welcome her warmly.

“It helps out a lot,” she says. “Thank you.”

Deacon Jackson says the blessing goes both ways.

“It’s not about me. It’s about the great work of our volunteers and the leadership of Pastor Epps,” Jackson says. “It makes you feel good to be in a position to be a positive force for good for people.”

Jackson was also recognized in 2022 during NTFB and POWERHANDZ Power to Give Foundation’s Black History Month Celebration of Giving event (pictured below).

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