Pella Church began their Growing Gifts project in 2004.  They joined with East Lincoln Christian Church and rented 195 acres from Pella Church member Leona Vanderbeek.  Each year, the labor, equipment and fuel is donated by local farmers.  Dorchester Co-Op, Monsanto and John Deere have also been generous donors, as well as many seed companies.  In the past three years, the net income from the project has been over $40,000 each year, which has been sent to various places around the world, including Kenya, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Laos.

Growing Gifts is part of the Foods Resource Bank (FRB), a Christian organization that connects U.S. farmers to farming communities worldwide.  For over ten years, FRB has been "committed to providing food security in the developing world through sustainable small-scale agricultural production, thereby allowing hungry people to know the dignity of feeding themselves."  Reformed Christian World Service, the relief agency of the Reformed Church in America, has been a part of FRB since its beginning.  For more information about the Foods Resource Bank, please visit www.foodsresourcebank.org.