COMMUNITY...
Yesterday evening a good friend of Shawn’s came over to hang out on the front porch, enjoy the nice weather and catch up. He is a pastor at a church here in the west end and he had a story he wanted to share with Shawn.
He and Shawn met during the pandemic when we started putting together food boxes for the community. While doing food relief is not normally something that Love City would be involved in, when the covid shutdowns started, we knew that it would be important to start some kind of food relief in order to not only provide for needs during a difficult time, but also to help quell some of the collective anxiety in our neighborhoods. We had connections with food distributors through buying for Porkland, and we thought about distributing food ourselves, but then Shawn had a better idea. Love City would act as the middleman, securing the food, bringing it to a central location and then allowing other organizations to come pick up an allotment of food for them to distribute it to people in their communities. We were able to secure the first tractor trailer load of food (some of the best fresh produce from our restaurant supplier) brought it into a borrowed cooler warehouse and started contacting people we knew throughout the west end to come pick up and distribute to people.
Neighbors distributing food to their neighbors at the start of the pandemic.
Through the friend of a friend Shawn met this pastor. He had a network of other pastors throughout the west end, and before you knew it, an informal distribution network had been set up. Shawn and Love City would secure the food, Shawn would call the pastor, he would then reach out to the network of pastors and organization leaders, and they would decide how much each pastor/organization would pick up to then distribute to their neighborhoods. All the pastors/organizations were located in the west end, and there were rules if you wanted to be a part of the group. You couldn’t tell anyone where the food came from, and you couldn’t go on the news or issue a press release to advertise what was happening. Throughout the summer and into the fall, truck load after truck load came in and then was broken down and the pastors and organizations would come pick up their allotment and hand it out to people the same day.
As it got close to Christmas the pastor called Shawn, by now they had become good friends working together every week on the logistics of the food distribution. “How about we put together some food boxes for Christmas?” the pastor asked Shawn on the phone one day, “can you get these specific foods for us to put together Christmas boxes?” Shawn responded that he would call his connections and see what he could get. The goal was to do around 2000 food boxes with enough food to feed a family of 6-8 people. It was a bigger logistical undertaking than the other food distributions. It would require breaking down pallets of items, and putting together assembly lines to build the boxes, then palletizing the boxes, and having the other pastors/organizations come and pick up their pallets of completed boxes to hand out in their neighborhoods.
Video of the assembly line putting together food boxes
Multiple organizations came together to put together the boxes, members of some of the churches involved came the day before and built the boxes, and volunteers from Love City and the churches formed assembly lines to put together the boxes on the day of. Then organizations would drive up to the warehouse, pick up their boxes as they came off the assembly line and drive off to hand them out. Towards the end of the day, when all the boxes had been built and the organizations were out delivering, Shawn met up with his pastor friend. His team was handing out boxes in their neighborhood a few blocks southwest of Portland. Shawn hung back just watching neighbors love on neighbors. Watching people who had lived in this neighborhood their whole lives be so excited to have the resources to help their neighbors. It was overwhelming to get to see some of the fruit of the hard work that had been done over the years. The Pastor came up to Shawn and said, come hand out a couple of boxes with me, so Shawn got out of the truck, and helped hand out the last of the boxes.
Video of boxes loading for distribution in the neighborhoods.
Yesterday as Shawn and the pastor sat on the front porch chatting, the pastor said to Shawn, “I have to tell you a story you aren’t going to believe.” “Try me, I bet there isn’t much you could say that would surprise me,” Shawn replied. “Well,” the pastor started, “I was down near Ft Knox in Radcliff on Saturday for a funeral. I was headed back to Louisville and my low gas light came on. I came up to a gas station and pulled in, but thought, naw, I can make it a little further. I went further on down the road, and pulled into another gas station, but the only gas pump available was on the right side of the car, my gas tank is on the left, so I pulled out and kept on going. Finally, I came to another gas station and pulled in and started to pump gas. I went inside the store to use the restroom and grab a soda and when I came up to the counter to pay, the cashier called me by my name. I knew I didn’t know anyone down toward Radcliff and Ft Knox, and when I looked up it was the cashier addressing me. She wore a headscarf indicating she was Muslim and she said my name again. I looked at her and apologized and asked her how she knew me. She said with tears in her eyes, “at Christmas time you gave a food box to my family that lives in your neighborhood. They had just moved to this country as refugees and had no money, and that food really helped them. I remember it was you and another white pastor that handed out the boxes that day.” And then she pulled up her phone and showed me a picture of me and you Shawn!”
Shawn leaned back in his chair and laughed, not surprised at how small the world is, or at how far of an impact helping each other had on community. Here was a white man and a black man working together to help people, handing out food on Christmas to a Muslim family of refugees newly arrived to America. Everyone has gifts to share and a part to play. Equip the saints to do the work.
This Fryday is Good Friday! Porkland will be open and we have the fish! Stop by and get some!
2519 St Cecilia St
Monday - Thursday 11am - 2pm
Friday 11am - 7pm
www.porklandbbq.com
On Monday one of our littlest students had a heart surgery procedure. We had been checking in on him every day this week to see how he was doing, and today, the entire school decided they wanted to walk down to his house to deliver get well soon cards and to say hi. He only lives right around the corner from the school. We arranged with Mom for him to come outside around 1pm and he thought he was only going to see his kindergarten classmates, but all of Mighty Oak's students and staff arrived out front to say hi and wish him the best and that they hoped to see him back at school soon. Community!
PARTNER WITH US
At Love City we believe in time, talent and treasure.
Mighty Oak Academy Amazon Wish List
We've started the new semester and our supplies of snacks and breakfast items are running low. You can find some on our Amazon wish list, but if you make a grocery run or Sam's club/Costco run and can pick up an extra box of any of the following we would appreciate it!
Granola bars
Yogurt cups or GoGurt
cereal
Veggie Straws
Goldfish/CheezIts
If you would like to partner with the school, you can visit our Amazon wish list and purchase items to ship directly to the school. Visit this link to view the list: https://a.co/77dqBIT
If you are interested in volunteering or to find out more information about supplies needed please email: info@lovecityinc.org or call (502) 272-078.
Please consider partnering financially with Love City. We are looking for sponsors for students at Mighty Oak Academy as well as partners to help fund construction of our new preschool. Click the button below to donate today.