Autumn Is in The Air!
The ROC Food Pantry is the largest food pantry in Josephine County, and we served over 62,000 meals to 2,349 households in August 2023! The ROC also delivered 504 home deliveries to our clients who are unable to physically come to the food distributions at the ROC. These deliveries are crucial to the individuals who receive them. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the six volunteer teams who make all this possible week after week.
Teams of Volunteers
Team 1 consists of Franz, Matt, Heidi, and Huey, who plug away five days a week building 500+ quality dry food bags consisting of staples of can goods, rice, beans, peanut butter, crackers, pasta, bread, etc. This herculean effort is performed flawlessly and seamlessly with the other teams. Thank you!!!
Team 2 consists of Dee, Alicia, Florence, Leslie, and the River Valley Sunny Valley Church team Lisa, Debbie, Kristen, Mike, and Trey. Together these phenomenal volunteers build 500+ produce bags every week consisting of fresh vegetables originating from many community gardens and the Josephine County Foodbank. Together, Team 1 and Team 2 handled over a million pounds of food last year, building one grocery bag at a time. Thank you!!!
Team 3 consists of the ROC’s five home delivery drivers Scott, Walt, Marla, Diane, and Morgan. These drivers deliver all over town and dedicate their own time and gas to guarantee that our most sensitive clients receive a weeks’ worth of groceries. Thank you!!!
Team 4 consists of our Thursday Food Distribution team who set up two food lines, and then faithfully, patiently, hand out grocery bags to 300 families through heat, rain, snow, cold, smoke, every week! Phenomenal dedication and selflessness: thank you Jan, Joe, Jim, Hope, Diane, Leslie, all the LDS Sisters, and everybody who makes it possible to do what we do.
Team 5 picks up the baton on Fridays and builds another 180 produce bags for the Saturday Food Distribution. Thank you, Dee, Leslie, and Alicia!
Team 6 completes the week setting up and doing the Saturday Food Distribution for 180 families! Thank you, Hazel, Melissa, Stacy, Dee, and Rand!
Thankfulness is the key to joyfulness! (1 Thessalonians 5:12-18)
Each of these teams are grateful to be part of this ministry, which is not a homeless ministry, but a keep-you-in-your-home ministry. When, at the end of the month, people are financially challenged and are facing paying for food, or buying gas, or paying rent, or any of a hundred other bills, the ROC Food Pantry provides enough food to feed a family for a week. This is critical for Hannah who lives on a fixed income and who expresses her gratitude every time she comes through the line. Joan, a health care worker, lives paycheck to paycheck. She told me that some months after she pays her bills there isn’t anything left and that she is forever grateful for the groceries she receives here. It is very touching to be a volunteer handing out groceries and see the sincere gratitude of most of the recipients. Keven recently was released from incarceration and is living in a transition house. He is very grateful for the food he receives here and now volunteers weekly.
Some other stories of gratitude include Alicia who came to Oregon from Louisiana and immediately came to the ROC to volunteer daily…she is grateful to God and is giving back. We are very grateful to have volunteers like her. Cowboy Jim volunteers every Thursday with the express purpose of bringing smiles to the faces of the clients he hands food to. Thank you, Cowboy Jim, for being such a wonderful shining light to everyone. I’ve seen hundreds of people shine with gratitude and dignity when he talks with them while giving them their groceries. Trey recently started volunteering at the ROC, and like all of us who volunteer here, is amazed at the scale of the need, the sheer amount good this ministry does, and the gratitude and meaning that comes from it.
There are hundreds of stories of gratitude of which these are only a few. All the hard work that is done at the ROC Food Pantry is predicated on financial donations from folks like you who want to help our community in a meaningful way. The ROC can purchase bulk amounts of food for 8 – 16 cents a pound. This means a $20 donation can feed a family for 4 weeks! A $120 donation can buy a half pallet of canned goods which go into hundreds of dry bags the ROC distributes. A $240 donation will purchase a full pallet of food.
Other ways to help: Donate your yard sale items to Backdoor Bargains, the ROC yard sale across the street, and get a receipt for the value of the items, and not have the hassle of doing an actual sale. Volunteers are the engines that make the ROC work, and if you would like to volunteer for one of the teams, we would love to have you. If you would like to donate food, bring it by. If you have extra garden vegetables or orchard fruit you would like to donate, come on in. If you would like a tour, please contact us.
