June 2024 -- St Joseph Food Pantry Report

June, 2024: Households Served – 712; Total People Served – 2,826  (Pictured, L-R: Kathy Sabella, Lidia Beer, Moon Mitchell)

• 1,129 households participated in the Healthy Pantry Initiative at St. Joseph’s by selecting items from a rage of fresh produce. Volunteers assisted guests in transporting them to their cars when needed.

• Food carried to qualifying households by friends or family members is not included in the Healthy Pantry Totals because these households are not on site to personally participate in the selection of healthy foods for their boxes, nor do they have access to tasting samples.

• Tom offered guests healthy tasting samples from items included in the weekly distribution

• Exie invited guests to choose a bread item & dessert from the donations by local bakeries & markets.

• The Fathers’ Day Baby shower at All Saints supplied a wide range of baby items and diapers to families with young babies.

• St. Marks parishioners delighted our guests with bags of cleaning supplies.

Anlya, a fragile 16-year-old girl, walked anxiously into St. Joseph’s Pantry for the first time last Thursday. Her eyes scanned the hall for a familiar face among the volunteers working at the registration and produce tables. She was searching for the volunteers who frequently amble out to the parking lot to visit with her in the car as she waits for her mother to exit with bags of food. Anlya needed to show them that she was now able to walk into the hall and thank them! It didn’t take but a moment for these parking-lot ambassadors to recognize Anlya and rush to her side, eager to congratulate the young girl for her regained ability to walk and talk, a milestone on the arduous road to recovery.

Anlya’s mother stood quietly by, remembering her own desperation that first day at St. Joseph’s in August of 2023. It was soon after Anlya’s surgery. She had quit her job to be at her daughter’s side for the surgery and recovery. Without benefits, there was no money for food, so the family needed help from the Food Pantry. Anlya remained in the hospital more than three months where surgeons removed a cancerous brain tumor followed by chemotherapy and feeding tubes and finally nine months home in bed. The child then struggled through many hours of therapy to recapture the ability to walk and talk. Now her mother allowed herself a sigh of relief as Anyla is regaining strength. 

God is imprinted in the details of this story and in the stories of others representing each of the 712 June households who entered the parking lot of St. Joseph’s Food Pantry. He is present in their stories – even those too weak to leave their cars and enter the pantry doors. All of them make us grow beyond ourselves. 

In the Gospel of June 30th (Mark 5:25-34) we read how Jesus raised to life the daughter of Jairus and later the faith of the woman with a hemorrhage who merely wanted to touch the clothes of Jesus to be well again. On Thursdays, volunteers do not touch the clothes of Christ, but encounter the Face of God imprinted in the lives of the men, women and children who flock to St. Joseph’s. Each visitor, created in God’s image, reflects God’s image in a unique way. 

Sharing the St. Joseph’s stories is one way to open this encounter, extending the healing power of God’s grace that flows from our guests to all of you who work to keep this mission alive.