GROCERIES FOR FAMILIES

Supporting families affected by the pandemic with food, hygiene items, and other necessities

Jubilee REACH Communications 5/12/20 Jubilee REACH Communications 5/12/20

Groceries for Families: Week 8 - Day 2

Today we set up all the canopies because rain seemed to be on the way, with light sprinkles all morning. By the time we opened at 1:00pm, it was sunny, and the canopies were great for shade. It was a busy day today, and it felt even busier.

Groceries today were delivered by Crossroads Bible, Cornerstone, Creekside Covenant, Westminster Chapel, and Bellevue Presbyterian churches. A total of 147 orders came in and all but a few went out to families, 8 by delivery. The remaining few will go out as deliveries tomorrow. About 25 new families entered the program, so there were new faces all afternoon. Thank you!

One part of this program not profiled before is the diaper/pull-up preparation which happens each afternoon. Diapers are stored in their boxes, which are easy to stack. For use, however, we need the unpacked and the larger bundles cut in half. We aim to give 30-50 diapers per order. The afternoon crew replenishes the supply of “ready-to-go” diapers, so the next day will have the ability to grab quickly during the rush. It usually takes two people an hour or two, depending on how many need to be replenished. It’s a task which goes unseen by most, but is vital to this program.

Tuesday is the main day we portion out the bulk food (rice, pinto beans, flour, sugar, salt) from large bags to small zip-lock. It takes a crew of 4-5 on the AM shift to power through the large portion of it. In the afternoon, anyone standing around in need of a job, starts scooping. By the end of the day, many bins are full and ready for the end of the week distribution to families. Today, the holding area of the bulk food is FULL.

Lunches were delivered to 24 seniors in the community today by Barb (Jubilee Hospitality Manager) and her crew. One note which already came back says “Thank you, Theresa. Always VERY delicious! It’s a big effort for all, much appreciated.”

Thanks for a great day. It’s so nice in the mornings to see all the shoppers dropping off grocery orders. It’s clear people are having fun and enjoying being involved. We’re grateful for everyone contributing, as it takes us all to keep this moving along.

Have a great evening,

Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family

Jubilee REACH Communications 5/11/20 Jubilee REACH Communications 5/11/20

Groceries for Families: Week 8 - Day 1

Today’s weather and temperature were just perfect. The sun was out, but it wasn’t too hot. There was a breeze, but it wasn’t windy. As I type, the weather is changing quickly and soon will be rain. The operation today went very smoothly. The AM and PM crews were strong. The families came at a good pace.

Groceries today were delivered by Bellevue Presbyterian, 24-Seven, Bellevue Christian Reformed, Sacred Heart Parish, Lighthouse, Rain City, Common Good, and CityHill Bellevue churches. A total of 152 orders were brought: 126 were picked up by families, 14 were taken out on delivery today and 12 were deliveries we delayed until the morning. Thank you!

Bellevue Christian Reformed Church Delivery

Families were offered a list of personal hygiene items, from which they could choose 3: paper towels, deodorant, shampoo, dish soap, bar soap, toothpaste, shaving cream/razor. Today we also offered liquid hand soap for the first time…very popular. Thank you to all who helped restock the pantry since Thursday. You all continue to come through!

A few emails from families:

Thank you so much and Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers who participate in this help... God bless you today and always!!!!!!
This is the first withdrawal we’ve had: “Good evening, I want to thank you, for assisting my family and me with food while my husband was not working and I was the only one working. Now he is going back to work starting this Monday. I will no longer need this assistance. I would like to give my spot, to another family that could use this great assistance. Again, thank you very much for all you guys do for the community. May God Bless you all!

A personal story from Ken:

Last Saturday, as I was here alone closing up the building, three young men pulled up in a car. I approached them to ask how I could help them. Only one spoke English; the other two spoke only Spanish. They asked if the food was available here. I asked if they were in the program. They are not and didn’t know anything about what is happening here daily. I explained we don’t have a food bank, so don’t provide food to people in general. I asked if they had families. No, they are just three friends. (I’d guess around 27-30 years old). I asked if they need help with food. They said yes, and that all of them had been without work for two weeks. My heart broke for these guys, as I could see they were desperate. As I went inside to get some food for them, the one asked if we would also have soap and shampoo so they could clean themselves. My heart broke more. As it was the end of the week, there were bits of extra food around. I was able to give them a full box of food and a few bags of toiletries. We had some box lunches remaining, so they took three of those, too. I hope they come back. It makes me wonder how many people like these guys are out there. At the moment, I did what I could. Now, two days removed, I wish I had done more.

Today begins the 8th week of this program, with currently 12 weeks planned. The waiting list was cleared today, so a total of 592 families are now officially in the program, each coming twice weekly. We know there are some who are no longer coming, simply by the attendance reports, so we will be working this week to purge them from the program. We did this once before a few weeks ago and removed 35 families.

Thank you for your continuous prayers for the families. A community has started through this program. Hopefully, they get more out of coming here twice a week than just-food. Hopefully, they feel welcomed, encouraged and there are friends here who care about them.

Blessings to you all,

Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family

Jubilee REACH Communications 5/9/20 Jubilee REACH Communications 5/9/20

Groceries for Families: Week 7 - Day 6

It's fortunate today’s pick-up time was in the morning, so families avoided the heat coming this afternoon. You can see in the “View from Above” photo that all of the canopies went out today to provide some shade. Thanks to those who have loaned us the canopies!

Today’s groceries were delivered by Evangelical Chinese, Victory Court, and Bellevue Presbyterian. A total of 140 orders were brought and nearly all went out today to families. The remaining few will likely go out on Monday morning. The operation went well today.

Saturday’s are hard because everything is done in the morning, so time is short. See the time-lapse video. Thanks to Sam for recording it.

The Mother’s Day gifts ended yesterday, but today was a final opportunity to wish the ladies a Happy Mother’s Day. Hopefully, they will enjoy tomorrow.

A few emails from families to pass along to you:

Muchas gracias por entenderme Daniel, que Dios lo bendiga a usted, a su familia y a todo el personal que colabora en jubilee reach. Porque por medio de todos ustedes nosotros hemos tenido un plato de comida en cada tiempo y todos los días en nuestra mesa. Que Dios les siga dando salud, y muchas bendiciones a todos. Gracias; atentamente Doris.

Thank you for understanding, Daniel. May God bless you, your family and all the personnel collaborating at Jubilee REACH. Because through all of you we have had a place of food on our table every time and day. May God continues to give you health, and many blessings to all. Thank you. Sincerely, Doris.

Thank you for this beautiful detail for Mother's Day. I thank you all for this beautiful gesture. I know you guys are a great support. May God bless you always.
I would like to thank everyone for all the hard work and open hearts. Thank you for helping to feed so many hungry people. Thank you to every single one of you that donates time to help and to give. Thank you for putting yourselves second and those in need first. May God bless you.
My mother wanted to thank you for all the amazing work that you do for so many people. Thank you for donating your time and risking your health for people in need who need your help. Your help keeps my family fed. She says “Bless you!”, and I agree, you deserve too much

As with each Saturday, here’s a look at statistics to date after 7 weeks:

Program Days: 42
Families currently in the program: 536+
People in these families: 2412 (approximate)
Grocery orders provided: 4522
Churches & Organizations engaged: 27
Different shoppers participating: 925 (approximate)

Thanks for a great week. It takes all of us to make this happen and the results are simply wonderful. We appreciate your strong partnership and the trust you give us to steward all that you’re providing.

Tomorrow is a day of rest. Be back Monday.

Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family

Jubilee REACH Communications 5/9/20 Jubilee REACH Communications 5/9/20

Groceries for Families: Week 7 - Day 5

(We’re changing the format of this email to only include today’s summary. If you want access to past postings, go to the blog: www.jubileereach.org/blog. Please put this blog link out to anyone participating in this grocery program, so they can hear the details and see pictures, too.)

(Quick correction from yesterday. I forgot to include one church which provided groceries – First United Methodist. My apologies. Thank you, FUMC!)

Now, today’s summary…

Hopefully you found time to be outside today, because it was lovely and felt so nice to be warm. We nearly put up the canopies at the last minute to give people some shade. Tomorrow, they will definitely go up.

May 8, 2020

(Quick correction from yesterday. I forgot to include one church which provided groceries – First United Methodist. My apologies. Thank you, FUMC!)

Now, today’s summary…

Groceries were delivered today by Covenant Presbyterian, Evangelical Chinese, Westminster Chapel, Bellevue Presbyterian and Crossroads Bible churches. Thank you! A total of 153 orders were received and all of them went out to families today, including 7 by delivery by Daniel.

Today was the final day for the Mother’s Day special items and it was as beautiful as the first two. Mothers were surprised and delighted by the recognition & gifts. Beautiful bouquets and lovely handwritten cards arrived all morning long. See’s Candy was wrapped with love and ready to go. Watching Mary hand each woman the three gifts and hearing everyone wish them a Happy Mother’s Day made the whole afternoon emotional.

One site coach working this morning told me, and I’m paraphrasing from memory here: “The whole grocery program is incredible, and there have been many incredible moments along the way, but this Mother’s Day special is the most incredible of them all.” Such a cool way to say it.

There’s is one of the women who is a new mother of a 7-month-old girl. Today, she was added to the waiting list and will likely enter the program next week. We invited her to take some groceries today, which turned out to be the Mother’s Day special. She was just beaming, as I carried her groceries to the car, she asked: “Are flowers given out every time?” Uh, no, but you picked a good day to start. She left here just floating back to her baby girl. Love that!

Thank you to everyone who gave extra to make this event happen. See’s Candy donated the chocolate. Shoppers gave flowers and cards. Certain people & churches gave extra flowers and cards to fill in the gaps. It’s hard to count how many exactly went out, but it is a little over 500 gift sets that went out. That is a lot of happy Mamas! Thank you, all.

A note from Judy Hunsberger, Lead Family Engagement Specialist, Bellevue School District

We have a family that was going through multiple health challenges this month and while I was on the phone with a parent explaining Jubilee Reach’s Grocery Program and all Jubilee does. There was silence on the other end, asking the parent if they were ok, they were at the Emergency Dept waiting to be seen. The parent was very interested and grateful but was concerned about how to get the groceries due to their health situation. I let this parent know I would contact Ken and Daniel to see what we could do and that I would be in contact with them later. The parent asked for me to stay on the phone call, I could tell they were scared and lonely. I didn’t want to talk about what I did since this parent knew me well, so I started telling them about the Jubilee Grocery Program and all the local congregations that helped with this program… We were on the phone for 20 minutes and the parent was being called in to be triaged. When I told this scared parent we(Jubilee, all the congregations that support us, Bellevue Schools, and myself) were in this together and I had a job to make sure that their family would have resources and supports in place and their job was to medical assistance. They are back home with medical help and support already delivered by Daniel yesterday. Ken, Daniel, Sam, and volunteers, grateful and humbled beyond words can express… Mahalo nui loa and Happy Mother’s Day to everyone…

A few emails from families:

Thank you so much for the time you have given us and for the gift you have given my family and myself, thank you so much for remembering such a special day like Mother’s day. May God bless you all and your families! 😊
Muchas gracias por poder darnos este bello detalle de parte de jubily reach y por hacernos sentir tan especiales en este 10 de mayo Bendiciones a todos aquellos que trabajan en jubily reach por darnos toda esta ayuda en estos momentos tan duros durante está pandemia . Bendiciones

Many thanks for giving us this beautiful gift on behalf of Jubilee REACH and for making us feel very special this May 10th. Blessings to all who work at Jubilee for giving us this help during these very difficult moments in this pandemic. Blessings.

It’s been a great week. Tomorrow will be the end of week 7. Thank you for your deep partnership, as we journey together to love this community.

Bring your sunglasses and sunscreen tomorrow…it’s going to be warm! (By Seattle standards anyway)

Have a great evening,

Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family

Jubilee REACH Communications 5/7/20 Jubilee REACH Communications 5/7/20

Groceries for Families: Week 7 - Day 4

Contrasting with yesterday’s weather, today was just perfect – sunny and very pleasant. It felt so good to be outside this afternoon with the families. The sunshine helps everyone feel better and happier…at least it feels that way to me. 😊

Groceries today were delivered by Doxa, Sacred Heart, Overlake Park Presbyterian, Redeemer, Bellevue Presbyterian, and Kalos churches. A total of 150 orders were delivered and all of them went out to families, including about 25 by delivery.

Families were provided bulk ingredient items and frozen chicken today. Chicken is becoming very difficult to get in the volume we need.

It is item #1 on our need list, as we aim to provide families protein with every order.

Today was Day 2 of the Mother’s Day Special, and it was as lovely as yesterday. Due to privacy, I can’t share all the pictures, but I’ll describe them to you. There are no “make you cry” stories, but women were very happy to be recognized. There’s a sweet picture of two friends who always come together. Maria is funny and loves being here. There’s a picture of a mother and daughter who come together every Monday and Thursday. There’s a nice picture of a mom and four daughters waiting for her in the car. One woman told us her husband will be very happy she is receiving the gifts because he was feeling bad they had no money for him to get her anything.

The candy looks so lovely wrapped with ribbon and paper. The flowers are overwhelming with their color. The cards offer a warm greeting. Together they make quite an amazing package to hand each mother. Kate and Mary were the team handing the gifts out, and I’m sure they fought to keep their own emotion in check.

Daniel came out to serve with us today. He is my partner in leading this program. His responsibility, along with the support of others, is to communicate with all the families and keep that side of the program organized. He clearly had a blast watching over the market and carrying groceries.

A few emails to share from families:

-Gracias a toda la comunidad jubilee rich, por proveer lo necesario ante esta pandemia, mil gracias a todas las personas que aportan un granito para toda una comunidad que lo esta necesitando. Gracias

Thank you to the Jubilee REACH community, for providing the necessaries during this pandemic. A thousand thanks to all the people who give their grain of sand to a whole community who is really needing it. Thank you.

-I truly cannot thank you and Jubilee REACH enough for your kindness. Me and the kids have been put through the ringer these last few months. I left their father and took the kids with me, and we have a domestic violence protection order against him. And now somehow with the merger child support, our SNAP food assistance decreased to $200. As I'm sure you can imagine, this "income" doesn't even cover rent. Life Spring has been helping with rent, and I'm forever grateful.

-The food and toilet paper have been so kind and needed. We've received a couple bags, and the little treats make it feel like Christmas! We couldn't remember the last time we had bacon or a chocolate bar! The kids wanted s'mores last week, so we tried to make them with chocolate chips and tiny marshmallows, and it didn't turn out well. We got lots of laughs though! I hid two of the chocolate bars to surprise them with real s'mores sometime soon. The kids also loved the cup of noodles, and I got to tell stories about how often we ate that in college. For all you've done for us, I cannot thank you enough.

A food truck is in the Jubilee parking lot as this summary gets written. A church-sponsored 120 vouchers, which we handed out to families today. Each family who could commit to coming back for dinner received two vouchers. At last count 15 minutes ago, 76 had been redeemed. More are coming now. What a great way to help families and help a food truck business. Thank you!

Thank you all for the continued support and, especially today, the additional support with flowers and cards. What a great day here!

Have a great evening,

Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family

Jubilee REACH Communications 5/6/20 Jubilee REACH Communications 5/6/20

Groceries for Families: Week 7 - Day 3

Wherever you were today, you may have experienced the same crazy weather as here: sun, rain, heavy rain, sun, rain, thunder, lightning, hail, major hail, rain, sun, warm. It was insane! Those outside got plenty wet. Families stayed away from about 1:30-2:15pm during the really heavy stuff. For sure, we lost a few people who never came out because of the weather, but most did come. See below for pictures and video of the hail.

Groceries today were provided by Highland Covenant, St. Louise Parish, Bellevue Presbyterian, and Bellevue Christian Reformed Churches. A total of 126 orders came and all of them went out to families. Without the rain, we might have run out…whew!

Today was Day 1 of the Mother’s Day Special, which has been a week in the planning and came together beautifully. See’s Candy donated lots of premium chocolate last Friday.

Thank you! This week a small crew has been wrapping the chocolate and adding ribbon, stickers, and notes. Many of the grocery orders came with bouquets of flowers and lovely cards. 24-Seven Church provided 40 extra bouquets and hand-made cards (see below pictures), just in case, and we needed them all.

We made a point to present each mother with the three items separately from the groceries, so they were given the Mother’s Day gifts special. Barb and Kate (part of the candy crew) handled the delivery (picture below), and it is beyond words to do justice to the love and joy felt by the mothers. Over and over, women were not only surprised to receive such acknowledgement, but were truly honored to be recognized as Mother’s on this special occasion.

One woman, who is a mother and grandma & speaks only a little English, started to cry when presented with her gifts. My role was to carry her groceries to her car. When we reached her car, she opened the hatch and leaned in to hold herself while she cried. It was all I could do to not hug her. She just said thank you over and over.

The next order of groceries carried out was to the same car, who turned out to be her brother. When he opened the side door, I saw that she was in the driver’s seat sobbing uncontrollably. My heart both broke and burst with love for her. Thank you to all who made this day happen! There are two more days.

Elsie Bencke (picture on left) returned to pass out kits she made for kids 2-6 years old. We put her in a yellow vest, so she could ask families who could use such fun: stickers, bubbles, crayons, games, more.

It was very special and a welcome treat for the little ones in the family. Thank you, Elsie! Come back again soon.

The senior lunches were delivered again yesterday to 24 people in the community. A picture of a pinwheel is on the right. These were given out with some of last week’s lunches. Today, Gina found this one in a man’s garden with the names Barb, Gina and Ashley (the drivers), as well as Jubilee, written on it.

Very special! Thank you, ladies.

One email from the senior lunches yesterday: “Barb asked me to share with you some of the comments I received yesterday when dropping off the senior lunches. The women were so happy and excited that we provided them with the See’s candy tins for Mother’s Day. Also, one of the adult son’s (Peter, son of Eta) was over when I dropped off the lunch to his mom and he was so appreciative that Jubilee was providing this for her. He’s not able to make it over there as often as he’d like so he’s grateful that we are stopping in weekly with lunch and checking in on her. Eta was so happy to receive the See’s candies as “she’s got a real sweet tooth”

The crews, AM & PM, worked so hard to pull things together today. With the Mother’s Day additions, it added a layer of complexity to manage. They were just awesome. Thank you to you all!

Tomorrow we will switch from personal hygiene items to bulk ingredients, which are very popular. The bins are full and ready to go.

Such a great day! Thank you for the love poured into these families. Please continue to pray for them.

Have a great evening. Warm temperatures are coming!

Ken Carpenter
Service Coordinator, Jubilee REACH
On behalf of the Jubilee family

Groceries for Families began in March 2020 to serve families financially affected by the pandemic. Over 25 organizations and churches have partnered with Jubilee REACH to provide families with groceries, hygiene items, and supplies.

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