Groceries for Families: Week 17 - Day 3
Day 99 was much, much better than yesterday. While yesterday felt busy and difficult, today felt smooth and calm. So nice. The weather was very nice and got plenty of toasty carrying groceries out to cars. It gets very warm under the canopies in the direct sun. The morning was a nice steady pace of incoming deliveries of groceries and two large loads of pantry items. Families lined up early in the sun and then continue to come all afternoon. It was a great day all around.
Highland Covenant Delivery
St Louise Delivery
Today’s groceries came from Bellevue Presbyterian, Highland Covenant, St. Louise and Bellevue Christian Reformed churches, as well as the Jubilee Friends group. A total of 156 orders came in and all went out to families today. Thank you for all the time, energy, treasure and love poured into the groceries.
Garden fresh produce, straight from the garden, came from two places this morning: Holy Cross Lutheran Church and the Master Gardener site on 16th SE. Wow, what glorious vegetables!
It all still smelled like the earth. Thank you for all the effort put into making this possible and for sharing it with these families. Typically, we try to give such vegetables to the families which are vegetarian.
Holy Cross Delivery
Master Gardener Delivery
As we were thinking about how to best distribute them today, the Jewish family who only eats vegetables and fruit showed up at the door.
They don’t come on Wednesday, so it was a surprise. The dad explained they cannot come tomorrow, so wondered if they could come a day early.
Boom! We quickly put together two bags of lovely vegetables and fruit, including items which just came in this morning. So cool when that happens. They were so very, very happy.
24-Seven Delivery
Today was the final day of the week for hygiene items to be offered. Thank you to everyone who helped fill the pantry the last week. Two loads of items actually came in today, one from 24-Seven Church and one from Evangelical Chinese Church. Thank you to both churches for your support. It’s great to have so many people helping. Tomorrow, bulk ingredient items will be offered. The lobby has been flipped and is ready to go.
The food truck will return this Friday from 4-7pm with Venezuelan cuisine. It was here in week 2 of the food truck and was very popular. Plan to come if you can.
A personal story from Ken:
On Monday, the continuing story for young son and his family was updated. In it, I had asked the mom, what else they needed, and she responded about needing help paying down their $840 Puget Sound Energy bill. From that, about six people responded and have paid off the bill in full directly to PSE, plus a little extra to cover next month. Below is an email from the mom sent me after learning this news. Today, she came to get groceries and brought her Grandma, who lives nearby. They both expressed their gratitude to everyone involved.
“Thank you u so much. I have no words to say you are a blessing in our family and I really want to thank all these people who are helping my family thank you so very much. I will only keep this in our family and my son who’s 17 cried when I read your email he said mom they don’t even know who we are who is there people out there who want to help us. Thank you very much and if it’s ok With you my family and I will love to do some thank you notes for the people who are helping us with they PSE bill and Also for the nice lady who helped me with the gas cards for my baby Leo. Thank you again very much. My family and I are going through hard times right now. But we appreciated very much your support and help. And thank you for being this wonderful person who cares for helping people who need it. Also, my husband does yard work and sprinklers and ask me if you guys need at any time help he will be more then happy to help please let me know if there’s anything we can do to thank you for all your support. Thank you and have a blessing afternoon 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼”
If anyone has local friends or neighbors who would like to help with the groceries but are not connected to a participating church, please send them the Jubilee Friends link:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0b49a5aa2ba3fd0-jubilee. Here, they can choose any day which is convenient for them, and the process is set up to walk them through it.
Today’s PM Crew
Another sweet day in the books. Tomorrow marks day 100. Wow! Thank you for all you are doing to sustain this ‘Groceries for Families’ program.
Have a lovely evening, wherever you are tonight,
Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family
