Mobile Food Distribution Event

 
We are partnering with Galveston County Food Bank to distribute groceries bi-monthly to people with food insecurity. Our next event is Saturday, December 16 at 9:00 am. This is a great opportunity to directly help people in our community. We are not only looking for disciples to help out. If you or someone you know is in need of food, please come to this event or encourage them to come.

This is a great ministry for families as well as individuals. We have people of all ages from our parish and our community who come to help. There's always plenty of laughter among our group. Everyone is terrific! 

Our volunteers are required by the Archdiocese to complete Safe Haven training. You can find out about that here. 

Here's how the events work. Put simply, the truck comes with the food. We sort the food. The clients line up in their cars. It is first come, first served. We register them by asking a few questions. We load the groceries in their car. They leave happy. We leave happy.

We arrive at 8:00 am to begin setting up. Wear closed-toed shoes. No sandals or flip-flops. This is a safety issue, so please don't assume this doesn't apply to you. We will have plenty of bottled water on hand. Dress for the weather. This is a rain or shine outside event. We will not cancel for inclement weather unless it is unusually severe. The clients will be coming rain or shine, and we will, too.

The various tasks that our disciples may be asked to do are:

• Get the tables, chairs, trash bins, and the ice chest from Madonna Hall and return them afterward. This requires three or four people and one or two trucks. Of course, we Texans love our trucks so I know that at least one of you has a truck!
• Open up the canopy tent (provided by the Galveston County Food Bank.) This will provide shelter for the food and us from rain or sunshine.
• Once the driver takes the pallets of food from the truck, we will begin sorting the food into bags. Sometimes there is more produce than canned or boxed goods, and sometimes its the other way around. (At one event, we had milk, apple juice, frozen chicken leg quarters, bell peppers, papaya, limes, and cereal. The second event, we had milk, chicken in pouches, tomato soup, biscuit mix, grapes, and cereal.) We sort the fruits and vegetables and discard the bad produce.
• The clients began lining up an hour or more before the distribution begins. So we have a couple of people on traffic duty, directing the folks where to park.
• Once lined up, our clients will need to be registered. Three or four people will do this by asking a few questions, like their name, address, number of people in their household, age, and ethnicity. 
• When we're set up and ready, the registrars will direct the cars to the distribution area. The cars will pull up and we'll put the food in their cars. They exit our parking lot.
• When all the food has been distributed or we have no more clients, we'll shut down. If there's any excess food, Hitchcock Police Department will fill up their trucks and take it to people that they know are in need. We're grateful to Hitchcock Police Chief Wilmon Smith for helping with this and for providing security.
• We'll gather the spoiled food, empty boxes, etc, and put them in the dumpster. 
• We'll collapse the canopies for loading into the truck.
• Tables, chairs, bins, and the ice chest are returned to Madonna Hall. 

We leave with cheerful hearts, having fellowshipped with each other and cared for people in difficult situations. The clients usually don't believe this when we tell them, but it's 100% true that we are blessed by them as much as (or more) than they're blessed by us.

If this is something that you're interested in doing, please contact Paige Persad at 409-925-3579 ext 203 or ppersad@ololchurch.org.