Interfaith Ministries' Feed Modesto Programs

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As we begin the new year, we are excited to announce new opportunities for the Interfaith community, and especially for those we serve. We have a steady supply of fresh fruits and vegetables that are donated to us daily. In order to make the best of the resources that are so generously provided to us - we need to ask for your help! We have a full daily schedule of food pick ups that we currently make on our own, but the list of donors is constantly growing. If you combine that with a retiring volunteer pool, you can see that if we do not replenish our faithful workers and drivers, we will end up missing out on a lot of great opportunities. As it stands, we have around six daily pick ups that we need to cover, plus we would like to be able to add one or two more but are currently unable to receive - due merely to a lack of drivers. If you would like to help us out with this, the commitment can be as large or as small as you wish. The simple overview is that we need people to run out to a business at a certain time of the day, load up the donations of food that are waiting for us, and then deliver them to our loading dock!

There are plenty of other ways you can get involved if making deliveries doesn’t appeal to you!

We operate a healthy food pantry every weekday morning that needs up to four people filling orders. We serve, on average, fifty families per day with the ingredients that they will need to cook healthy meals for between three and five days. As those clients come in to pick up their food services, we rely on our volunteer to keep the shelves stocked and to bag up each households’ food. We operate this service Monday through Friday, from 8:30 until around noon.

During the afternoon we switch over to providing free clothing for our clients. All throughout the morning, while food is being distributed, we need volunteers to sort through, and hang up the clothing in our clothes closet. At 1 PM we begin calling people into the closet where they can select the clothes that they need. We also have volunteers there to assist the families, and to keep track of the ticketing system that we use. We give out clothing up until the last client is through, or at 4pm.

There are also two on-going programs that can always use volunteer hands. We bring a completely free-of-charge Farmers Market into three neighborhoods each month. We load up produce, bread, and other foods into our trailer the day before, and then head out on the morning of the Farmers Market. We go to the Head Start programs at Orville Wright and Franklin Elementary, and also to the Housing Authority. When we get there we set up shelves and tables, and then fill them up with baskets of produce. As our clients go through the line to fill up their bags, our volunteers keep the baskets refilled and make sure the line is moving smoothly. When done, we will load up our things, pick up all of the trash, and head back.

The other program is our HomeBound Delivery Service. In this program we have approximately one hundred seniors, or disabled individuals that are not able to make their way to our location in order to get services. What we have done is split them up between the first four weeks of every month, and deliver a box of food products to their door on Wednesday mornings. We have a different route for each week, and making the deliveries can take from 3 to 5 hours, depending on the route. Also, while we are there visiting with each client we make sure to do a wellness check and actively listen to how they are doing. It is not uncommon for our visit to be the only one some of these clients may get all week. It is also helpful to know if they have any specific dietary needs so that we can provide for them. Through this program alone, and following the progress of our precious homebound clients, we have watched many individuals reverse a pre-diabetic diagnosis.

It is hard to stress enough the importance of the role that volunteers play in our organization. We would not have the ability to serve even half of the population that we serve without them. For decades we have relied on the generosity and hard work of the folks who come and give freely of their time. For that reason, we are immensely grateful for each and every individual that has ever served.

If you would like more information about the services we provide, and how you can get involved please see our website, FeedModesto.org, or drop us a line at 209-572-3117. We would love to serve with you in our attempt to eradicate hunger from Stanislaus County.