Today marks the first day of week 12 of this ‘Groceries for Families’ program. It’s hard to believe, yet has gone so quickly. Today was similar to many other days, in that it was smooth and a full day for families. We were a little short-handed on the crews today, so we had a few gaps to fill. We made it through fine, with people jumping around to help out.

Groceries today came from Common Good, Rain City, CityHill, Bellevue Presbyterian, 24-Seven, Bellevue Christian Reformed, Sacred Heart, and Lighthouse churches, as well as the Jubilee Friends group. A total of 186 orders came in and all went out to families today, including 39 by delivery. Mondays are always fun and busy, with 9 different groups bringing groceries. Thank you to everyone who came today.

You may have noticed in the pictures of the lobby, there are always groceries in the middle of the room, like an island. This is the “conveyor belt”, which keeps moving forward as groceries are taken out the door to families. The crew on the back end keeps the belt moving, as groceries get loaded and cold items added. With the count going up last week and this week with new families, the conveyor belt has widened. If you look closely at a picture, you’ll see it is now two grocery orders wide. We need this simply for holding space, but also to keep more groceries ready to go out. It has been helpful, for sure. But it also makes the remaining floor space ever smaller.

Families were offered personal hygiene items today. They could choose 3 off of a list of 9. On it today was “All-Purpose Cleaning Spray”, which is very popular. One shopper found that it can be ordered online from the dollar store, so it is a tremendous value. We’ll be adding this to the pantry list this week. Thank you to everyone who gave to fill the pantry. So great!

A story from today:

Sofia and her mom delivered a hand-made thank you card and beautiful plant to the Jubilee crew this afternoon to say thank you. We stopped the whole operation to receive the gift. It was such a fun moment. Thank you, Sofia!

Today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, the waiting list was cleared with 70 families being brought into the program for the first time. This is such a great feeling, knowing families are needing food. There were many new faces in line today, which is just awesome to see.

There are now approximately 682 families in the program, which is about 3000 people or so, coming twice a week. Wow! We will also be working this week to begin removing families who can support themselves. It will be an ongoing activity behind the scenes. We’ll see how it goes.

Thanks for such a great day. We didn’t put canopies up today because of the wind, but the weather was just fine all day.

Have a nice evening,

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

Groceries for Families: Week 12 - Day 1

Groceries for Families: Week 12 - Day 2

Groceries for Families: Week 11 - Day 6