The morning of Saturday, May 30, almost 100 volunteer SJV parishioners came together to collect food for our first-ever Drive-by Food Drive. For the health and well-being of our volunteers, SJV’s Pantry has been closed to the public and remains closed until further notice. In an effort to continue to assist those in greatest need, the Social Service Ministries’ Social Concerns Committee planned and organized the Drive-by Food Drive with the intent of delivering the collected items to Magnificat Houses and Catholic Charities’ Guadalupe Center. Magnificat operates 16 residential homes for the homeless, a clubhouse for the mentally ill and Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen. Twice a week, the Guadalupe Center is currently assisting over 300 families per day with food, and it was becoming more and more difficult for them to receive food from other sources.
Twenty nine families, many of them with children, made up part of the 97 volunteers who came out to help direct traffic, unload donations from the donors’ cars and load them onto the vehicles, and drive their fully loaded vehicles to the receiving sites. The flow of cars was constant and steady throughout the day, but manageable. The event ran very smoothly, and all the volunteers and donors seemed to really enjoy themselves. The event was made even livelier by a DJ providing music courtesy of the Knights of Columbus.
In total, 370 cars/families dropped off and donated food over a span of 3 hours. In addition, the non-expired food that remained in SJV’s Pantry was also donated to these organizations. At the end, 17 fully loaded vehicles ranging from SUVs, pick-up trucks and trailers carried approximately 450 boxes of food to Magnificat Houses and Catholic Charities’ Guadalupe Center. Both organizations were very grateful and reported that SJV’s donations over-filled their pantries. Catholic Charities reported that they filled not only their food pantry but also an additional room with donations. Magnificat estimates the donation at 1,575 pounds of food. In total, we estimate that between 4,500-5,000 pounds of food were donated all together!
We thank all the SJV departments, ministries, groups, organizations, and everyone who made this possible by helping to plan or promote the event, and by volunteering or donating food! It was wonderful to come together again as a parish family to do what we are called to do: Living faith, changing lives and making a difference!
To view all the pictures, visit our Photo Gallery.