Groceries for Families: Week 12 - Day 2
It was a wet one today. We’ve had worse days for weather, but today’s rain was pretty persistent. Families were dressed in coats, although a few were holding out for summer weather in short sleeves. Overall it was a great day, with the whole operation running smoothly.
View from above
Groceries today came from Cornerstone, Creekside Covenant, Crossroads Bible, Westminster Chapel and, Bellevue Presbyterian churches, as well as the Jubilee Friends group. A total of 169 orders came in and all went out to families today. Thanks for a smooth morning of deliveries and for all the love poured into every order.
169 orders
Cornerstone Delivery
Creekside Delivery
Tuesday is a busy day for portioning out the bulk foods for the end of the week: rice, pinto beans, sugar, and salt.
A picture is at the bottom is Marjorie, Andreina, and Rosario working today. These three are employees of the Jubilee REACH Thrift Store but have been working at the Jubilee REACH Center with this grocery program all spring. They do lots of different things here, but Tuesday mornings are all about scooping into ziplock bags.
Today was also Rosario’s birthday, which we celebrated.
Bulk Food Prep
Rosario's Birthday!
Sam and laundry pod prep
Another thing happening today was getting laundry pods portioned out to 20 a bag, in anticipation of passing them to families next week.
A picture of Sam (to the left) working on this. Our goal is to have at least 400 bags packed before Monday, and this is how it gets done.
Food boxes were delivered this morning from Pacific Produce early today. A total of 290 came in on 5 pallets. Very little of this food is intended for Jubilee actually, although we use it as extras to give families. As you’ve read from time to time, we’ve become close to Viviente Dios Methodist Church in White Center, Seattle, and order these boxes for their congregation specifically. Pastor Guzman was here this morning at 10am for an initial van load and returned at 3pm for one more. He is providing for his congregation in a neighborhood without one chain grocery store. Many in their congregation match the demographic of the families in this program, so it a natural extension to help them in any way available. We also pray for them and have been blessed with this relationship all spring.
There wasn’t enough extra food today for a market, which turned out to be a good thing. Because of the rain, we needed the market area for the food box pallets to keep them all dry. We were able to set up simple tables near the front of the line with bags of apples, onions, and potatoes for families to take as the left.
A few email from families:
Hola mi nombre es angelica y si quiero segir conla ayuda del mandado gracias por ayudarnos que dios Los siga vendiciendo con muncho mas para q no's sigan ayudando dios Los vendiga sienpre infinitas gracias atte Angelica
Hello, my name is Angelica and I would like to continue with grocery help. Thank you for helping us. May God continue to bless you with much more so we can continue to receive this help. God bless you always, infinite thanks. Sincerely, Angelica
Buenas tardes a todos los de jubileereach ☺️ Y a todos las bellas personas que nos ayudan con los alimentos mi familia y yo les estamos muy agradecidos por toda su ayuda muchas gracias de todo corazón 🙏 dios los bendiga Yo como tantas personas me reducieron horas en el trabajo por eso acudí con ustedes para ayuda ya que tengo tres pequeñines y eso me preocupava ya que soy inmigrante y no cuento con ayuda del gobierno pero hay tantas personas buenas como ustedes que no les importa el estatus migratorio Gracias Dios los bendiga ☺️
Good afternoon to everyone at Jubilee REACH ☺️ and all the beautiful people who help us with food for my family and I. From the bottom of my heart, we are very thankful for all your help 🙏 God bless you. Myself like so many people had my hours reduced at work which is why I asked for help from you because I have three little ones and I was worried because I am an immigrant so I cannot count on help from the government, but there are so many good people like you who are not worried about our immigration status. Thank you. God bless you ☺️
PM Crew
As you know from yesterday, 70 families were added from the waiting list this week (20 Mon/Thu, 25 Tue/Fri, 25 Wed/Sat). Tomorrow we will bring in an additional 14 families from the waiting list to Wed/Sat, as there are sufficient groceries available, so we didn’t want to wait another week to help them.
Going the other direction, there were 33 families removed from the program this week. Most were simply not showing up regularly enough to hold a spot for them, but there were a few who told us they could now support their own family again. This is very encouraging news.
The end result of all this moving is there are currently 663 families in the program, all coming twice a week (208 Mon/Thu, 227 Tue/Fri, 228 Wed/Sat). Of these, 42 have the groceries delivered by the Jubilee staff.
Thank you for your continued faithful service to support this program. There are such wonderful comments coming from shoppers as they drop off each morning. It is a glorious thing that we are all pulling together to support such dear families in this community. Please continue to pray for them.
God bless you all,
Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family
