Danny Long directs the steady stream of cars that pull into the Jamul Community Church parking lot around a makeshift path to where Melodee Takasugi greets drivers. She keeps her distance as drivers roll down windows, but cheerfully greets each one then determines how many boxes of food they need to ensure their family is fed for the week.
“Before all this, we’d typically give out 250 to 275 boxes of food. Last week we counted 462 families. There is a huge need right now but we’re here and happy to be able to do it,” Takasugi said.
Long says the food distribution program has been going on for 11 years in partnership with Feeding America.
“We have this every Thursday from 10 to 3:30 but we’ve changed what we’re doing so it is now a drive through with face coverings and gloves and such. We’ve had to make adjustments like we’re loading on the curb and then they put the box in their trunk,” Long said.
He chuckles.
“Trucks are our favorite.”
Takasugi cuts in from where she is keeping pace with the incoming cars and rattles off a handful of east county neighborhoods when asked where the cars seem to come from:
“Jamul, Dulzura, Spring Valley, El Cajon, Alpine, Lakeside, Santee—everywhere. We have singles, we have families, we have blended families.
It’s everyone, young families with little kids. We’ve got some who are in their nineties. We have pregnant ladies,” Takasugi said. Long glances at the folding tables placed under a sunshade against the threat of rain from an overcast sky. He eyes the boxes lined up and waiting for distribution, then says today’s boxes include a head of cabbage, a bottle of coconut water, potatoes, carrots, a box of Perfect bars, and a bag of popcorn.
“We never really know what we’re going to get but every family who shows up gets a box, typically produce,” Long said.
He explains that some food is stored in the church pantry so they can pull from that supply if someone comes by unexpectedly but they primarily keep to the Thursday time slot.
Long walks into the building where masked volunteers are assembling boxes of food.
“One of our concerns was whether our volunteers would drop off because so many are seniors but a lot of them have come and just distanced themselves,” Long said.
“We normally have people go through the building and talk to us while we load a box for them, we could talk to them about life, take them aside and let them cry.”
He points across a sidewalk as volunteers wheel boxes out the door to replenish the tables outside.
“Those are our church offices over there and although we’re all working remotely now, we usually can just talk to people,” Long said.
“Some of the families have been coming to us for quite some time, we know them and they know us. I can’t tell you how many people have my phone number and know to call me if they need food,” Takasugi said.
Today, Long says, they’re expecting 500 families to show up in need.
Parked in a corner of the lot, Marcela Yolanda Peabody waits to collect food to drop off with multiple families who have no car. She says her late husband was part of the church and she has distributed food to families as far as Tecate since she first came to the area as a new bride in 1963.
“There are people who tell me Thursdays are the best day of the week because I show up with food,” Peabody said.
Sitting in her car, masked, she says she has served as a translator over the years, attempting to bridge the language barrier between English-speaking volunteers and Mexican food recipients new to the states but is currently unable to cross the border while it is closed in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“I’m just a volunteer but I’m doing what I love to do, to cook and to give,” Peabody said.
Looking to where Takasugi is greeting drivers, she says:
“All of us, we’re all here to help people because nobody should go hungry.”
