San Diego church gets creative in food-giveaway program
Before members of the congregation began arriving to pick up the prepaid boxes of food, the Rev. Bruce Jackson, associate pastor of Bayview Baptist Church, asked volunteers involved in the distribution process to join hands for a prayer circle.
“Praise you, Lord,” Jackson prayed. “Because of you, somebody will eat tonight.”
A few minutes later, the pastor and volunteers began checking lists and carrying the food boxes to cars, trucks and SUVs pulling up near the church in the Encanto neighborhood of San Diego.
On this recent Saturday, the scene was repeated at more than 200 churches across Southern California and others in Phoenix and Northern California, under a venture begun by the Treasure Box, (www.thetreasurebox.org), a Carlsbad start-up company.
Once a month, 20 trucks hired by the company deliver discount boxes of frozen food for distribution to people who have paid for them in advance. More than 90% of the host sites are churches looking to supplement their traditional food-giveaway programs.
Between loads, Jackson discussed the reasons Bayview has become involved in the distribution program.
“To a lot of people, the church is seen as anti-gay, or antiabortion, always espousing things to be against, but never helping,” he said. “This is a way to serve people directly and change their viewpoints about the church.”
For owners and managers of the Treasure Box, veterans of the food distribution business, the effort is not solely charitable. They hope ultimately to make a profit.
The company, which started in November 2008 and has sold about 200,000 boxes to date, has average deliveries each month of about 18,000 boxes. The break-even point, where profits are a possibility, is closer to 20,000, according to company officials.
Good Source Solutions Inc., parent company of Treasure Box, has for decades been in the business of selling wholesale food to nonprofits and institutional buyers such as schools and jails. But persuading churches to participate is different, said Treasure Box Executive Director Steve Guy.
“I can’t say, ‘God wants you to do this,’ but I can say, ‘This is a way to serve your community,’ ” Guy said.
Tonita Boatner, a volunteer at Bayview Baptist, believes in the Treasure Box approach and is trying to get other churches to sign up as distribution points and to spread the word to their congregations. It isn’t always easy, she said.
“Churches have seen programs come and go, and they feel ripped off sometimes,” Boatner said. “I understand the resistance.”
Treasure Box provides a per-box subsidy to each church to offset its overhead. To spread the word about the program, the company gave away several hundred boxes at a neighborhood festival this spring.
“We like to think we’re building communities one box at a time,” said Good Source Chief Executive Craig Shugert.
There are four kinds of food boxes, each selling for $30, officials said. The standard monthly box, with a retail value estimated at $65 to $100, contains 21 to 25 pounds of meat, vegetables, fruit, side dishes and a dessert. The August menu included chicken breasts, beef patties, beef meatballs, sausage links, chili, cheese ravioli, corn, green beans, mangoes, pasta, long-grain rice, oatmeal and a dessert.
At holiday season, the box contains turkey and ham slices, stuffing and cranberry sauce.
“Without this box today, I’m not sure how I would feed my family,” Cynthia Laugher, 37, a single mother of three girls, said as she collected a box on the recent weekend.
That Bayview Baptist was among the churches to volunteer as a distribution site is not surprising. With a congregation of 2,500 families, the church and its longtime pastor, the Rev. Timothy J. Winters, have a history of community outreach.
The church has a food-giveaway program of its own on the third Friday of every month. It also conducts a “street evangelism” effort, in which members go door to door in racially mixed, working-class communities asking residents about their unmet needs.
“We have a lot of people hurt by this economy,” Jackson said. “These aren’t people looking for a handout, just help in making their food dollars go further.”
This month, Treasure Box delivered to 258 sites in five counties in Southern California, more than 40 in the Phoenix area and about 25 in Central and Northern California.
According to company data, most people buying the boxes have an annual income of $35,000 to $70,000, Shugert said.
Treasure Box officials, working with several churches, have applied to be eligible for the federal food stamp program so customers can pay for the boxes with their monthly allotments. “We get people calling us every day asking if they can use” their food stamp cards, said regional manager Marianne Richards.
The distribution process at Bayview Baptist went swiftly. Volunteers had lists ready. Jackson, with help from Boatner’s son, Ivory Ballard, loaded boxes into trunks and backseats.
Clarice Armstrong, a Bayview staff member, explained the church’s philosophy.
“The Lord has blessed us, so we can bless others,” she said.
tony.perry@latimes.com
