ANAHEIM : Church Offers More Than a Free Lunch

Edward and Angela Ortiz have been bringing their four young girls to the Vineyard Christian Fellowship’s Lamb’s Lunch every Sunday since Edward lost his maintenance job nearly a year ago.

Across the table one recent Sunday was Ron and Tammy Lounesbury, who were returning to the Lamb’s Lunch for the first time in months. Three years ago, the Vineyard had helped Ron solve a drug problem. Recently, however, he was laid off from his construction job. The couple are staying at a Costa Mesa homeless shelter and were simply looking for a square lunch.

“Everyone here at the Vineyard is nice to everyone, and they really try to help you out,” said Edward Ortiz, who lives in Anaheim.

“You can say that again, brother,” Ron Lounesbury said. Times are so tough that he has sent three children to their grandparents’ home in Idaho. “When we were hungry, we knew we could come to the Vineyard.”

The Vineyard has been distributing food and clothing to the poor for nearly four years, passing out 800 meals at its Lamb’s Lunch each Sunday and several hundred more meals during smaller weekend outreach programs at local parks. In 1992, the 7,000-member church gave away 2.2 million meals and 77,714 bags of groceries, officials said.

“Our philosophy as Christians is that these items are tokens of God’s love,” Assistant Pastor Monte Whitaker said. “The food will be eaten within a couple of days, and the clothing will wear out quickly. But by giving them these tokens of God’s love, we hope to point out to them that Jesus can take care of all of their needs.”

The meals usually include a burrito, potato chips, muffins and pastry. The groceries include rice, beans, cereals and canned foods. The food is donated by grocery chains, a neighboring vending company and social service programs. The clothes are donated by church members and the community.

About 80% of the recipients are Latinos who work in low-income service jobs, such as janitors or maids.

In January, the church will also begin holding a free medical clinic on Sundays.

The 15-year-old church began its food program in April, 1990, when it brought 35 children to its former location near Disneyland.

“These were children who lived in the motels and many of them were the children of prostitutes and drug addicts,” Whitaker said. “We would take our church vans and pick them up for lunch, give them a little bit of Sunday school and then give them each a bag of groceries when we took them home. It all grew from there.”

Within six months, the weekly attendance at the Lamb’s Lunch totaled more than 400 and included adults and children, Whitaker said. When the church moved to its current location at 5340 E. La Palma Ave., attendance dropped to about 200 but has made steady gains, sometimes reaching 900.

“We want to do so much more for these people,” Whitaker said.