Groceries for Families: Week 13 - Day 6
What started out as rain, with the canopies going up early, turned out to be a delightful morning off warm and dry. Hooray! Saturday families are definitely sleeping in these days. The line at 10am was maybe 40 deep and was through in 15 minutes. The real rush started at 10:45am and lasted a good hour. One man who comes regularly showed up just before 12pm. When we kidded him about being late, he simply said he slept in. Nice. 😊
ECC Delivery
Victory Court Delivery
Groceries today came from Evangelical Chinese, Victory Court, and Bellevue Presbyterian churches, as well as the Jubilee Friends group. A total of 178 orders came in and all went out to families today. The entire morning went smoothly. Enjoy the time-lapse attached, courtesy of Sam. Thank you, everyone!
One of the Jubilee Friends’ shoppers today was a teacher from Sammamish High School nearby. He actually just retired yesterday and was delighted to help families in this way, some of whom have kids at Sammamish. Mr. Burlingame grew up in Bellevue, attended Tillicum Middle School and Sammamish HS himself. If you’ve had kids attend that school, he may have been their teacher. Congratulations and thank you, Mr. Burlingame
The market today was full of some great food for families to take a little extra: apples, potatoes, onions, lettuce, kale, canned vegetables, noodles, soup, and more. Lots of extras came this morning which added to the market. Thank you to everyone who gave!
The hygiene pantry is well stocked and ready for Monday. Thank you to everyone who donated items. Ready!
Today’s Market
A separate Jubilee story to share from Ken:
Last summer, as part of the annual Jubilee Service Day, two separate volunteer groups built and painted a fence for a family on the NE corner of 156th Ave and Main Street in Bellevue. If you know that main intersection, you’ve driven by this house & fence many times. Here’s a photo album of the work done last summer: https://jubileereach.smugmug.com/2019-Summer/2019-Jubilee-Service-Day/08242019-I-Jubilee-Service-Day-Donato-Home/. (Sadly, during the planning process last July, his wife passed away, so we all grieved with him all summer.) Well, a few weeks ago, soon after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, someone painted “Black Lives Matter” on the white fence. It wasn’t done any better than graffiti and looked terrible, even for someone who stands with “Black Lives Matter”. The homeowner tried to hang his own affirming signs, but they were quickly torn down. He called to ask for help. Today, a crew went to his house and in 2 hours had the fence primed, repainted and new signs hung. The homeowner worked with them and is thrilled, not only with the cleanup effort but also for the affirming messages now displayed. The crew will return in the summer to paint the fence with “anti-graffiti” paint, so clean up will be easier if/when it happens again. Such a great story! Thank you, crew. (see below for pictures)
Fence Before
Fence After.
Today was the final day of the week for bulk ingredient items. Here’s a tally of the number of bags given out over the three days this week, plus laundry pods:
Flour: 170 bags or 349 lbs
Rice: 257 bags or 643 lbs
Beans: 237 bags or 393 lbs
Sugar: 333 bags or 317 lbs
Salt: 267 bags or 174 lbs
Laundry Pods: 363 bags or 7,260 loads of laundry
As with each Saturday, here’s a look at statistics to date after 13 weeks:
Program Days: 78
Families currently in the program: 637+
People in these families: 2866 (approximate)
Grocery orders provided to-date: 11,696
Churches & Organizations engaged: 28
Different shoppers participating: 1100 (approximate)
As you know, in the previous two weeks, we emptied the waiting list, bringing 156 new families into the program. We believe this will mark the peak of this program. This past week had 19 families enter the program and 45 families exit the program (some because they removed themselves and some because we removed them for very low attendance). So, for the first time, the number of families in the program decreased, by 26, from 663 to 637. We are expecting to see a trend of decreasing numbers in the coming weeks and are watching it closely.
Today’s PM Crew
Today marks the last day of week 13 of this ‘Groceries for Families’ program. It continues to work very well from all sides. Thank you all for the continued participation, prayers, support, and love for the people of our community. It’s just so great to be in this with you all.
Thanks for a great week. Tomorrow is a day of rest. Be back Monday.
Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family
