Scott Wolf saw something at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission this year that he never wanted to see.
“We have a dry food pantry that we use to store the food that we distribute in our weekly food boxes that we give out,” said Wolf, director of development for the Rescue Mission in Indio. “For the first time in a very long time, and I am talking years, for the first time this year in the early fall, we were actually able to see the floor and the backs of the walls. That’s how bare our shelves were because of the increased demand.”
The pantry at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission is a bit fuller these days, but the demand leading up to and including Thanksgiving Day stretched the resources of the mission, which provides food, short- and long-term housing and even recovery and medical services for those in need. That need seems to grow as the holidays draw near.
“We are seeing a huge increase in food insecure families that come to the mission for support with our weekly food box distribution,” Wolf said. “Whereas several months ago when we were giving out 100, maybe 120 boxes a week, this morning we gave over 200 away.”
“Last week we gave away 420 turkeys. So that means there were 420 families that were food insecure that would not have received turkeys and had a good Thanksgiving dinner if it wasn’t for the support of the community allowing us to do that.”
Thanksgiving Day saw the mission serve two meals, a Thanksgiving breakfast from 6 to 10 a.m. and an afternoon meal from 2 to 6 p.m. The numbers anticipated for the day were startling. They provide meals for emergency shelter clients of up to 90 days in the 80-bed facility on the Van Burean Street campus, long-term residents (from six to 12 months), and people who simply show up.
“Where we normally serve anywhere from 900 to 1,000 meals a day on any given day of the year, on Thanksgiving Day we’ll serve probably 5,000 meals,” Wolf said.
That’s all part of more than 300,000 meals the mission serves each year, generally three meals a day. In addition to the dry food pantry, the mission serves meals through donations of food from the public and businesses as well as from money donated through CVRM.org or money raised through monthly mailings throughout the Coachella Valley.
“You go to a fast-food window, you know it’s going to cost you at least $10. If you get a No. 9 combo or a meal, it’s more like $15,” Wolf said. “What we use and the way our budget is structured is $2.22 buys a meal. That kind of money investment in the rescue mission feeds a heck of a lot more people than just yourself.”
Volunteers and staff at the rescue mission go out of their way to make the day special for those in need of a meal.
“We want to make sure we provide a nice environment, a family-friendly environment,” said Andrew Newton, the assistant food manager for the mission who has worked at the Indio facility for two years. “Because a lot of these people are alone on Thanksgiving and it is hard to be without the ones you love and be out on the streets. It’s nice to be able to come somewhere and have a nice home-cooked meal with everything that is cooked fresh that day and come and feel like it is a holiday. It’s Thanksgiving. It is a special time of year.”
With Thanksgiving now finished, Wolf and the team at CVRM will focus on a day that stretches the facility’s resources just as much, Christmas.
“We’ll do a Christmas Eve meal and a Christmas Day meal, and they will still turn out 4,000 to 5,000 people a day,” Wolf said. “But what we typically try to do, the difference because Christmas and Thanksgiving here at the rescue mission, is we put out an appeal for turkeys for Thanksgiving and for Christmas we like to put out an appeal for hams.”
How to help this holiday season
Donations of food can be dropped off at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission campus at 47-470 Van Buren Street in Indio. Donations of money can be made at cvrm.org and hitting the donate button. The rescue mission also sends out mailers each month across the Coachella Valley soliciting donations.
Andy Abeta contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Hot meals, food boxes stretch holiday resources at CV Rescue Mission
Reporting by Larry Bohannan, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
