Our ministry
of food deliveries to the urban poor in Oklahoma City.
2012
- 2013 Delivery Schedule
Every month, we deliver food to more than 350 different low income
households who don't have transportation.
We deliver basic supplemental
groceries -- a food delivery for a household of 4 people or fewer
will consist of canned goods
(corn, green beans, apple sauce, peaches, beans), dry goods (2 lbs of rice, 2
lbs of pasta, 2 lbs of beans), four or five
miscellaneous items, and often two or three refrigerated or frozen
items. The deliveries vary a bit each month. Families of 5 or more
get a second bag. That may have a
slightly different mix of items in it. Out of 350
deliveries/month, between 60 and 90 will be to larger
families like this. Each delivery also includes a paper copy of our monthly
publication, the Oklahoma City Catholic Worker, which has
ideas for coping with poverty, recipes, and some inspirational
material. We don't
distribute paper copies to anyone else,
they are linked here at http://www.justpeace.org .
About half of our deliveries are
to people who are disabled and/or elderly. We see a lot of working
mothers and grandparents raising kids.
Some people are referred to us by other charities, organizations, and churches. Some
people find us on their own and that's fine too.
We do these deliveries over two
Saturday work days each month. We meet at 9 AM and bag up
the groceries. Then we head out to make deliveries.
On the first delivery day of the
month (usually the 3rd Saturday), we go to public housing
apartments -- Wesley Village, Towers,
Towers Annex, Belle Aire in central OKC and Charles Atkins and Temple Gardens
in NE OKC. We take a U-haul truck to the central
OKC deliveries and send volunteers in cars to the NE OKC
deliveries.
On the 2nd delivery day of the
month (usually the 4th Saturday), we do the other deliveries which
will be scattered around low income
communities in Oklahoma City. We don't deliver in Moore, Norman,
Edmond, Yukon/Mustang, MWC, Del City, or OKC east of Bryant.
We typically need 15 to 20 drivers to complete these
deliveries. We
sort the deliveries into driving lists where all the deliveries
will be
(generally) in a given geographical area. Since there is a
considerable amount of manual labor involved with this kind of ministry
-- fetching, lifting, carrying, sorting, bagging, etc. -- we
are also happy when we see carloads of strong and enthusiastic
young people show up on delivery day.
November
and December are exceptions. Because of the way the
Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are on the calendar, we do
all of our deliveries on one day each of those two months.
The delivery days for those months are always the Saturday just
before the holiday.
During November and December, St. Charles parish uses the Dorothy
Day Center for its holiday program, so for those two months,
we will bag the groceries off site. Locations will be announced
closer to the events.
It typically takes us about an
hour to bag the groceries and then deliveries take two or three
hours, depending on how many deliveries you take.
We have been doing this for 13
years, since 1999 and our beginning as a Catholic Worker
community.
We have partners who help with
this ministry of distributive justice:
St. Charles Borromeo Catholic
Church built the Dorothy Day Center, a food warehouse, makes sure we have
the food we need to make
these deliveries.
The Catholic Church of the Epiphany
of the Lord, through parish
organizations and members, provides a considerable amount of
financial support that pays for details like gasoline, phone, truck rental,
food bank charges; we also have a number of volunteers who come
from Epiphany.
OKC First Nazarene provides
a considerable number of very faithful volunteers.
Members of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative donate money which is used to buy
food from Oklahoma farmers to give to the poor.
We also receive miscellaneous
help, support, and prayers from a considerable number of other
people, some here in Oklahoma City,
some elsewhere, some we know, others we don't. We pray for all our benefactors and
partners constantly and are truly grateful to God for the help we
do receive.
We are rather anarchistic in our
organization of this. Call me and tell me your coming if you want
or just show up.
If you can't be there, say a prayer for us that people will hear God calling them to help. Thanks
for your prayers.
Bob Waldrop
Oscar Romero Catholic Worker
Community
Oklahoma City
Venite Adoremus,
10 improvisational meditations on
the music of Advent, Nativity, and Epiphany, recorded live by Bob
Waldrop on the
Yamaha Conservatory grand piano at the Church of the Epiphany of
the Lord in Oklahoma City. Funds from the sale of the CD benefit
the
ministries of the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House.
PS. Why we do this: Works of Justice and
Peace
HOME