08/05/2026
Greetings, everyone! We wanted to take a moment to address a few things concerning our Friday Food Distribution that we have been doing for a very long time now. It first should be noted, that we can only continue doing them, if everyone does what we ask. We are in a plaza, which means that everything is shared. The outdoor space & the parking spaces.
We asked months ago, for everyone (who is not handicapped or disabled) to please park in the rear of the building. There’s plenty of space. We ask this, because week after week, everyone coming to get food was taking every available parking space & leaving very few- if any parking spaces for the customers who would like to get food from Subway 🥪 🥗 or Pepperoni’s 🍕.
Some people did what we asked for a few weeks, but now we are back to taking up most of the parking again out front. This cannot happen. It is in our lease, that when we are having any event where there will be an influx of people, we must have people park in the back, unless they’re handicapped. This is definitely understandable, as we wouldn’t want all of Subway & Pepperoni’s customers to take all of the parking and then no one could get to us daily.
We have a great relationship with the owners of both, but we have to do our part. Starting this Friday, we will have 36 inch tall cones in front of each of the spaces on the front row with these signs attached, as we continue to ask people to not take up all of the parking spots. There’s 41 spots in the lot. Leaving at least the front row clear, will provide 10 immediate spots for their customers. If the parking continues to be a problem, we will have to discontinue doing the distribution there on Fridays.
It should be noted that, the number of families that come to us on Fridays is constantly growing. Last Fridays number or families increased by 50%. Yes, 50%. Just from the previous week. The need for groceries in local homes is absolutely there. Before we divided up the times for families to come…
•Families with children at 3pm to 3:45pm
•Senior Citizens 3:45pm to 4:30pm
•Individuals 4:30pm to 5:30pm
Families would start lining up hours early- in the cold or heat, just so that they could make sure that they got inside.
Since we divided up the times, the lines died down some, but only for a little while. Now people are back to lining up way ahead of time- in the heat, & that’s what we don’t want you to have to do. We can’t make people not line up early, because we hear, “If I don’t get here early enough, I won’t get anything.” But, honestly, if everyone arrived just a few minutes before their time to come in, everyone would be able to walk in shortly after each other & not have a wait.
We understand it’s hot- someone messaged about the seniors standing out in the heat, but we don’t have enough room for everyone to come sit inside while they wait for us to get started, unfortunately. We are trying the best that we can. The staff & volunteers really are. We just ask everyone to continue to be patient & understanding. A lot of work goes into what the ladies do each week. A lot.
Finally, please be reminded, that the line starts to the LEFT 👈 of the front doors 🚪. The left. Not 🚫 the right of the door. We cannot line up in front of Subway & Pepperoni’s- blocking their sidewalk area & their doors. Please. Volunteers will remind everyone of this on Friday. Those that choose to stand to the right of the doors and line up and block the restaurants, will not be able to be served until they’re on the correct side.
If you’re on the correct side- to the left of the doors & you see others on the wrong side, please stay on the correct side, as those that’s on the correct side will be served first. As this continues to grow, we are going to soon have to find another place to hold this- but we are out of options at this time. Ideally, we need a warehouse or large building on enough land that we can have everyone park & be served & not have to stand outside in the weather at all.
We need a large building on enough land to be able to everything that we do, to not get complaints. But everything that we have tried- so far, we get complaint after complaint. We are trying to keep serving, but restrictions & complaints & not having adequate space makes it very hard. When we did the distributions out on 441 on the vacant land that we had, the county stopped that because they wanted us to pay for a permit every time we did one and we could only have one event out there every 60 days.
They wouldn’t even let us build a pole barn out there to help with the food distributions because of their restrictions. When we held the mobile drive thru distributions at the preschool building behind subway, we got so many complaints because cars waiting to get food, were semi in the road & blocking driveways & mail boxes. Just to name some things.
We need a building. On land. With enough space to do everything we do every day for the community. And we are praying that God can work a miracle soon. Very soon. Sorry that this was so long, but we needed to address this. Everything was said in love. We are not upset with anyone. But help us continue to help others, please. If anyone has suggestions, please send them our way.
The lease payment where we currently are is about to be increased- again. So we are not sure how much longer we will be where we are in the plaza anyway. We need a miracle when it comes to space.
Respectfully, Pastor Adam Joy
Also sharing to Deeper Purpose Family Resource Center- TRC & Deeper Purpose Community Food Ministries 💚
