Trailhead Lunches
Originally posted Sept 5, 2020
When I walked into the Mateel Community Center a little after noon on Thursday, I saw about 12 people finishing up the sandwich-making phase of that day's food assistance project. The brown bags, all 80 of them, were lined up ready to be boxed and delivered to the trailheads. Patte and Alice would take them out to local campers to encourage them to shelter-in-place.
There were some new people there as well as some who have been coming every week since we started last May. Back then we were turning out 80 to 90 meals three times a week. Now we've scaled back to once a week. The more experienced volunteers are like a well-oiled lunch-making machine. Each bag has a banana and/or an orange, a hard boiled egg, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a cookie, and a vitamin.
After the bags are stuffed we roll the burritos, usually some combo of meat, veg and grain wrapped in a big tortilla. Sometimes a surprise from Babette, our amazing cook: fishstick sandwiches were the latest offering. It was a production line: assembling, wrapping and boxing the warm food, also to be distributed to hungry people who don't have houses.
I'm so inspired by working with this amazing crew of people who show up every week, some of whom always stay til the last dish is washed, tables put away, and the floor swept.
SHO has gotten the funding together, but the work couldn't happen without the dedicated efforts of people in the community. I can't thank them all enough for making the vision of feeding our campers a reality.
Shirley Gray,
Volunteer Coordinator & SHO Board Member
September 15, 2023 /Lunch Program update:
SHO was able to get funding from CALFRESH to continue the lunch program from November 2022-December 2023. Our same dedicated Thursday Tribe of volunteers contribute to the success of this weekly lunch. Lunches are delivered by RRHC outreach people.
CALFRESH also funded, along with DHHS HOME program, a warming center from Dec. 14, 2022 through March 2023 which SHO partnered with Redway Baptist Church. Along with a hot meal, snacks, clothes, supplies of hygiene products, sleeping bags and tents to those that needed them and also served as an access point for outreach workers, CALFRESH sign up.
I am happy to report that the church’s congregation decided they wanted to continue these services and do so for the benefit of many.