Friends! Meet "Adopt-a-Block"

 Every Saturday

Fourteen blocks of low-income families will benefit from generosity that flows from this place!

The Vacaville Storehouse

Not just 14 blocks of families. This outreach is literally transforming the city of Vacaville.

Fresh Produce- a LOT!

By "transforming" I mean, they are cleaning up that town. They have reclaimed parks riddled with crime. Some of the volunteers on Saturday will go do graffiti abatement after they load up all the food. They have favor with the police department. The police department often will contact the storehouse for emergencies. Adopt-a-Block is dialed in with volunteers at the ready, so, "sure police department, we'll go to those neighborhoods and pass out flashlights!" And, I haven't mentioned it, but this storehouse is open to the public five days a week, two hours a day, and people come in and fill a bag of groceries and shop for toiletries and clothing too!
Oh and, that's not all!
Sometimes they even get good stuff like meat! And when I was inside looking around, I could see that some homeless teens were in there packing bags of groceries, sorting clothes and, yes, working, getting some job skills and being loved on.
Yeah, that too!

Preparing for the volunteers to arrive.

Pictured below is some of the food that will go out to the fourteen neighborhoods. There are fourteen vans that each got to choose a tote full of breads and three boxes of sweet treats from this line up. Stuff Safeway and some other stores donated.

Bounty waiting to be loaded.

In addition, we loaded up two boxes of corn, two boxes of cabbage, two boxes of baby food,  six small boxes of artichoke sauce starter, one box of canned white beans, six big boxes of frozen blueberries, and a pallet of natural all purpose cleaner. Oh, all that stuff was just for our van. Every van got that same list.

When we arrived at our neighborhood, Alamo Gardens, we set the boxes out like a tiny little farmer's market so that the recipients could pick what they liked.

See all those boxes stacked in the back? That's food going out!

Even baby food!

And! If you thought that was a lot of food...this Saturday every van also packed thirty bags of pre-packed USDA groceries-noodles, chicken broth, soups, canned veggies and more.
These bags are heavy!

All the bags say

"We love our city"

on the side!

There they are! Pretty little vans all in a row.

Even kids can help! Serving is fun, so why not blow bubbles and celebrate that the poor are being cared for this beautiful Saturday morning?

Getting it done!
Almost ready to go!
This is our van heading out. First time jitters. It's hard to not get excited about feeding people and blessing families. From start to finish, "finish" meaning in our own car heading home, three hours!

Those are all the pictures I took. I'll take more next time, pinky swear. Truth is, I was too busy working. No grass grows under these people's feet! There are people to feed. The thing that baffles my mind is that this is 

every single Saturday!

9 to 12

I know that many of you want to come with us and here is a snippet of what you can expect:

Arrive: 9 and start sorting & packing

9:30 or 10: worship and prayer 

"worship" meaning one song

prayer all at once, 30 seconds max

10: pack and go

arrive, set up "market"

recipients wait in line for us to arrive

we give them bags to fill

off they go

team leader registers them

volunteers deliver groceries to shut-ins, we had five

we pack up and get out!

unload any left-overs back at the storehouse

leave

vans get returned

done by 12

The rules are simple!

1) Have fun

2) No knocking on the door like the police! (I'm not kidding!)

3) When you are done-you're done! Don't overstay your welcome.

How cool is that?!

So who wants to go?

And another little side note........

Jon is training to bring this program HERE!