Increase seen in requests for free food

City of Refuge Apostolic Church pastor Ruth Thomas readies food for distribution. [Andy Fillmore]

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Posted July 19, 2023 | By Andy Fillmore, [email protected]

The turnout for the weekly City of Refuge Apostolic Church free food distribution in Silver Springs Shores has more than tripled since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The church, located at 9495 S.E. Maricamp Road, on the property where the Silver Springs Shores real estate developer’s welcome center once stood, has provided the outreach for about 10 years, indicated the Rev. Ruth Thomas.

The free food distributions, held every Thursday starting at 8:30 a.m. and also on the second Saturday of each month, have been called a godsend, helping those in need and those trying to stretch already thin budgets.

The church secretary said the pre-pandemic turnout was typically around 40 cars in the Thursday morning free food line but now as many as 150 cars, some picking up foodstuffs for multiple families, will pass through.

Dedicated volunteers and the support of His Compassion Food Bank have kept the outreach moving forward. At a recent distribution session, about a dozen church member volunteers loaded the food, including sweet potatoes, baby food, Starbucks coffee and more, in an assembly line-style drive-thru operation. The line of cars wound around the parking lot and out toward Maricamp Road. A volunteer stood at the entrance and asked how many households the driver was picking up for.

“This definitely helps; everything is so expensive,” said a driver who was picking up food for two households.

One woman in the line said it’s “nice to help people in the neighborhood” and that “Social Security is not enough.”

One driver was picking up for a neighbor who can’t get to the distribution and said if it weren’t for the food outreach, recipients would have to “do without.” Another driver said the outreach was “beautiful” and praised the variety of fresh food. An Army veteran picked up a 24-bottle case of Sparkling Ice Flavored water from a pallet and said the food outreach is a “great help.” Yet another driver said he had recently lost his job at a local home improvement store.

Thomas prayed with a recipient who asked her to do so.

“(This is) bringing the community together,” she said.

For about the last 18 months, the church has been one of 159 area sites receiving pallets of food from His Compassion Food Bank on Northeast Jacksonville Road. The food bank’s website indicates it fed 19,626 families in 2022.

“It most definitely helps,” Thomas said of the food bank’s support.

According to Census.gov, in the 2020 Census, the population of Silver Springs Shores was 24,846 and 15.5% were over the age of 65 and 16.9% of the population were “persons on poverty.”

Robbie Johnson with His Compassion Food Bank said as many as eight pallets of foodstuffs are delivered by His Compassion to the church every week. Fruit, produce, baking and sweet potatoes, meat, cheese, Krispy Kreme items and household cleaners are typical of the items distributed by the food bank.

“(Our) community is taken care of as best we can as for the influx of people, or the number of people that we see coming through the lines at the City of Refuge and any of our other partnering agencies. Kids are out of school, home all day,” Johnson wrote. “His Compassion delivers 7,753 meals and 2,000 drinks weekly.”

Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church, about a mile east of City of Refuge Apostolic Church, at 10670 S.E. Maricamp Road, is making plans to hold a mobile food drive to feed about 300 families in the first week of August. Church office manager Lyndy Garrett said the church provides a food pantry on the first and third Tuesday of each month. She said the upcoming mobile drive is in response to the need seen in the area.