Organizations
enjoy giving
By Ruth Estrada
On-line Forty-Niner
Once
again it is that time of year to stuff our
faces and feast on the all the goodies.
Local organizations in the Long Beach community
lend a helping hand so that everyone can
enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner.
The
Long Beach Rescue Mission is a nonprofit
organization that offers a wide range of
services to the public. The Rev. Bill Thomas,
CEO of the mission, said that the mission
has been preparing for this festive holiday
for more than a month now.
“We
will be serving between 120 to 150 turkeys
throughout the day,” Thomas said. “We will
start dinner at 10:30 a.m. and will continue
on until every mouth has been fed.”
Thomas
also said that the community donates almost
all of the food that is served by the mission.
“Because
we are using donated food, it only costs
us about $1.75 a meal,” Thomas said. “Anything
else that is needed, we then buy.”
Each
day the mission usually serves between 1,000
to 1,200 meals a day and last year they
served more than 115,000 meals. So you can
only imagine how busy it will be on Thanksgiving
Day.
“We
really enjoy doing this and it’s really
a privilege to serve the poor,” Thomas said.
“It is very important for us Americans to
give back.”
Food
Finders is another organization that has
been preparing for this busy holiday. Arlene
Mercer, founder and executive director of
Food Finders, said that the organization
is the link between donors, service agencies
and people in need.
“In
addition to our normal supply of serving
over 9,000 people a day, we have already
given out 106 turkeys and over 17,000 pounds
of canned goods,” Mercer said.
Mercer
founded Food Finders in 1989 and has since
delivered 20 million pounds of food to more
than 233 agencies throughout the Los Angeles
and Orange Counties. The Long Beach Mission,
hospices and children’s homes are a few.
Food
Finders then delivers the food, free of
cost to all service agencies. It also works
as a referral service that directs individuals
to where they could get help. Mercer said
that she founded the organization after
seeing people in need.
Mercer
said that the food collected by Food Finders
is from grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries,
produce warehouses, hotels and hospitals.
“The
Soup Exchange in Long Beach is the first
place that donated food to us,” Mercer said.
The woman who managed the restaurant had
been raised not to throw food away. She
and I were both excited because we knew
that there were people out there who could
use the food.”
|
