May 8, 2020

(We’re changing the format of this email to only include today’s summary. If you want access to past postings, go to the blog: www.jubileereach.org/blog. Please put this blog link out to anyone participating in this grocery program, so they can hear the details and see pictures, too.)

(Quick correction from yesterday. I forgot to include one church which provided groceries – First United Methodist. My apologies. Thank you, FUMC!)

Now, today’s summary…

Hopefully you found time to be outside today, because it was lovely and felt so nice to be warm. We nearly put up the canopies at the last minute to give people some shade. Tomorrow, they will definitely go up.

Groceries were delivered today by Covenant Presbyterian, Evangelical Chinese, Westminster Chapel, Bellevue Presbyterian and Crossroads Bible churches. Thank you! A total of 153 orders were received and all of them went out to families today, including 7 by delivery by Daniel.

Today was the final day for the Mother’s Day special items and it was as beautiful as the first two. Mothers were surprised and delighted by the recognition & gifts. Beautiful bouquets and lovely handwritten cards arrived all morning long. See’s Candy was wrapped with love and ready to go. Watching Mary hand each woman the three gifts and hearing everyone wish them a Happy Mother’s Day made the whole afternoon emotional.

One site coach working this morning told me, and I’m paraphrasing from memory here: “The whole grocery program is incredible, and there have been many incredible moments along the way, but this Mother’s Day special is the most incredible of them all.” Such a cool way to say it.

There’s is one of the women who is a new mother of a 7-month-old girl. Today, she was added to the waiting list and will likely enter the program next week. We invited her to take some groceries today, which turned out to be the Mother’s Day special. She was just beaming, as I carried her groceries to the car, she asked: “Are flowers given out every time?” Uh, no, but you picked a good day to start. She left here just floating back to her baby girl. Love that!

Thank you to everyone who gave extra to make this event happen. See’s Candy donated the chocolate. Shoppers gave flowers and cards. Certain people & churches gave extra flowers and cards to fill in the gaps. It’s hard to count how many exactly went out, but it is a little over 500 gift sets that went out. That is a lot of happy Mamas! Thank you, all.

A note from Judy Hunsberger, Lead Family Engagement Specialist, Bellevue School District

We have a family that was going through multiple health challenges this month and while I was on the phone with a parent explaining Jubilee Reach’s Grocery Program and all Jubilee does. There was silence on the other end, asking the parent if they were ok, they were at the Emergency Dept waiting to be seen. The parent was very interested and grateful but was concerned about how to get the groceries due to their health situation. I let this parent know I would contact Ken and Daniel to see what we could do and that I would be in contact with them later. The parent asked for me to stay on the phone call, I could tell they were scared and lonely. I didn’t want to talk about what I did since this parent knew me well, so I started telling them about the Jubilee Grocery Program and all the local congregations that helped with this program… We were on the phone for 20 minutes and the parent was being called in to be triaged. When I told this scared parent we(Jubilee, all the congregations that support us, Bellevue Schools, and myself) were in this together and I had a job to make sure that their family would have resources and supports in place and their job was to medical assistance. They are back home with medical help and support already delivered by Daniel yesterday. Ken, Daniel, Sam, and volunteers, grateful and humbled beyond words can express… Mahalo nui loa and Happy Mother’s Day to everyone…

A few emails from families:

Thank you so much for the time you have given us and for the gift you have given my family and myself, thank you so much for remembering such a special day like Mother’s day. May God bless you all and your families! 😊
Muchas gracias por poder darnos este bello detalle de parte de jubily reach y por hacernos sentir tan especiales en este 10 de mayo Bendiciones a todos aquellos que trabajan en jubily reach por darnos toda esta ayuda en estos momentos tan duros durante está pandemia . Bendiciones

Many thanks for giving us this beautiful gift on behalf of Jubilee REACH and for making us feel very special this May 10th. Blessings to all who work at Jubilee for giving us this help during these very difficult moments in this pandemic. Blessings.

It’s been a great week. Tomorrow will be the end of week 7. Thank you for your deep partnership, as we journey together to love this community.

Bring your sunglasses and sunscreen tomorrow…it’s going to be warm! (By Seattle standards anyway)

Have a great evening,

Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family

Groceries for Families: Week 7 - Day 5

Groceries for Families: Week 7 - Day 6

Groceries for Families: Week 7 - Day 4