Groceries for Families: Week 9 - Day 6
No rain and plenty of fun here today! The clouds kept the sun away, but the rain held off. The crew day had a ton to do in a short amount of time and got it all done. The pace today of families arriving was different. The early rush was over in 20 minutes and then trickled for an hour. But the last 45 minutes was busy, busy. Perhaps people are sleeping in or perhaps they’ve learned to avoid the opening line. In the end, most came. Enjoy the Time Lapse courtesy of Sam, who kindly gives his phone up for two hours each Saturday.
Groceries today came from Bellevue Presbyterian, Evangelical Chinese, and Victory Court churches. A total of 140 orders came in and all went out to families, including 11 by delivery. The incoming grocery drop-off was smooth, timely and very organized.
With Saturday being very tight for time, this was a great operation. Thank you to all!
Victory Court Church Delivery
Deliveries
Tonight will have a church-sponsored food truck in the Jubilee parking lot from 4-7pm. Wood-Fired Pizza! Come, if you can, to support the business with cash customers. We handed out 125 vouchers to families today, so we’ll see how many return. The guess is many…as who doesn’t like pizza! Thank you.
A follow-up personal story from Ken:
You may remember the story earlier in the week of the woman whose family only eats green vegetables. I had made it my mission to befriend her, as my attitude had been less than stellar. As green vegetables came in as extras over the week, there was a nice assortment ready for her yesterday. Before we opened, we invited her and her daughter to the front of the line and presented them with the vegetables: lettuce, cucumber, peppers, eggplant, avocado, broccoli, and a few other things. She was very perplexed about why we would do this for them. She asked multiple times “why would you do this?” The simple answer to wanting to help did satisfy her, and her smile came. Her daughter was delighted and bouncy with happiness. Hopefully, they had a great dinner last night. We’ll try to continue to do this for them and a few other vegetarian families.
Today was the final day of the week for bulk ingredient items. Here’s a tally of the number of bags given out over the three days:
Flour- 173 bags or 355 lbs
Rice- 238 bags or 595 lbs
Beans- 208 bags 250 lbs
Sugar- 307 bags 292 lbs
Salt- 229 bags 149 lbs
Laundry Pods this week- 331 bags or 6,620 loads of laundry
To date, we have given out 15,840 loads of laundry through laundry pods.
(this doesn’t include the liquid detergent given out)
As with each Saturday, here’s a look at statistics to date after 8 weeks:
Program Days: 54
Families currently in the program: 533+
People in these families: 2398 (approximate)
Grocery orders provided: 6716
Churches & Organizations engaged: 27
Different shoppers participating: 985 (approximate)
You may notice the number of families in the program dropped from 592 to 533. We had put about 100 families on “probation” early last week, as they simply weren’t coming consistently enough. They needed to come twice to remain in the program. In the end, 59 families were removed. If they want to come back in, they will just go onto the waiting list.
There are 70+ families on the waiting list currently. We hope to have the capacity to bring them into the program in a week.
Today marks the last day of week 9 of this ‘Groceries for Families’ program. Thanks for a great week and an incredible spring. It feels like the wind is at our backs with so many people in the community pulling together. Thank you for all you do to support these families through giving, your time, and your prayers.
Tomorrow is a day of rest. Be back Monday.
Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family
