Artist inspired to design alternative Christmas cards, year after year

By Carol A. Breitinger, Society of St. Andrew Communications Director

Big Island, VA - Christmas in July? That is when it starts for the Society of St. Andrew every year, for that’s when they commence work on their annual Christmas Card Gift Donation program.

Once the staff composes the poem or inspirational message for that year’s alternative Christmas card, Virginia artist Annis McCabe is engaged in the process to create the art for the card. The unique and exclusive designs she has created for the past thirteen years have been McCabe’s annual artistic donation to the Society of St. Andrew, a national hunger-relief ministry founded and headquartered in Virginia.

The Society of St. Andrew (SoSA) effectively tackles the problem of hunger in America through its grassroots Gleaning Network, Potato & Produce Project and Harvest of Hope programs. With the help of tens of thousands of volunteers each year, SoSA salvages fresh produce that will otherwise be wasted due to various market conditions and donates it to feed the hungry. SoSA is one of the nation's largest nonprofit suppliers of fresh produce to the hungry and is an Advance Special for Christ and His Church (#801600).

“I’ve known the folks that founded the Society of St. Andrew since they first came to Bedford County (VA) some thirty years ago to serve in the pulpit ministry of a local United Methodist four-church charge,” said Annis McCabe. “For a number of years, Ken Horne and Ray Buchanan (founders of the Society of St. Andrew), along with their wives and five small children, lived together in a 175-year-old farm house, where they went about modeling and living a simple, responsible lifestyle in a hungry world. When their ministry focus evolved to saving food to feed the hungry, they turned an old sheep shed on their property into the first office for the Society of St. Andrew.

“Because I knew them to be folks who were ‘walking the talk’, I wanted to help them in any way they needed,” McCabe explained when asked how she got involved in the SoSA Christmas card project. “When Ken and Ray asked me to design their first Christmas card in the early ‘90’s, I was more than happy to do it.”

McCabe, a resident of Bedford, VA, is an accomplished artist working in a variety of media. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary (now the Virginia Commonwealth University), did post-graduate work at Arrowmont School of Crafts in Tennessee, the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, and Hollins College in Virginia. She gained prominence throughout central Virginia teaching in the art departments of Lynchburg College and Randolph-Macon Women’s College (now Randolph College), as well as the Lynchburg Fine Arts Center, the Sedalia Center in Bedford County , and her own Blue Feather Studio. In recent years Mrs. McCabe has been recognized as a liturgical artist: her paintings, drawings, and sculpture, which are imaginative, serious portrayals of the spiritual life, enrich the sanctuaries of a number of central Virginia churches, including Main Street United Methodist Church in Bedford, VA, where she and her husband, Dr. William McCabe, are long-time members.

“I am truly honored that year after year they (SoSA) continue to ask me to help in this way,” said McCabe, reflecting on her years of helping SoSA raise funds. “I very much believe in what the Society of St. Andrew is doing – it is such a practical and honest solution to food waste and feeding the hungry. The fact that they (SoSA) worked to make it possible for participating farmers to get a tax break for their crop donations … the thousands and thousands of volunteers that glean … everything SoSA does is a practical approach to a very serious problem. I think everyone who gets to know about SoSA appreciates the economy and efficiency with which they work and the concepts they have brought to feeding the hungry.

“Another thing that appeals to me about my task is that it becomes an ‘alternative’ Christmas gift,” said McCabe. “I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for people to acknowledge SoSA’s work and feed the hungry in honor of friends and family.”

Asked how she comes up with the Christmas card design each year, McCabe explained, “I like to try and think up new approaches to the subject matter. It’s challenging because it has to conform to about a five inch by seven inch space. I use simple materials – good papers, colored pencils and acrylics.

“SoSA tells me what the written message will be and I take it from there. I ask prayerfully for guidance, and often it’s a good while before a breakthrough occurs. When I’m working on a card it may take three or four serious design attempts before the final one emerges. I listen to books on tape occasionally when I’m working; that’s a way to occupy and entertain my conscious mind while my hands and eyes, working from the creative side of the brain, seem to know just what to do,” she elaborated. “It’s like participating in a small mystery with an ‘aha!’ at the end. I do it all the time.

Since it was introduced in 1993, the Society of St. Andrew’s annual Christmas Card Gift Donation program has generated over half a million dollars in donations that have been used to provide food to the hungry. To date, the direct result of these specific gift donations has been twenty-nine million servings of fresh, nutritious produce saved from going to waste and given to service agencies around the nation to feed hungry Americans.

“I find it amazing when I think about how many people SoSA has been able to feed just from this program alone!,” declared McCabe. “And I feel quite blessed to have a hand in that.”