Nine thousand dollars’ worth of food staples was donated Thursday to the St. Vincent de Paul Society at St. Jude’s Catholic Church which will help feed needy families in Ceres.
The donation came from the Dot Foods California distribution center, just outside of Ceres on Nickerson Way, through its Neighbor-to-Neighbor program to help fight hunger.
A large trailer was unloaded into the church pantry with boxes of peanut butter, jelly, Ramen, mac and cheese, pasta, pasta cause, canned vegetables and other staples.
Mabel Borges Gomes of the St. Vincent De Paul Society of St. Jude’s has been helping with the church’s food program for 25 years said Dot Foods’ donation was a blessing.
“I’d say that based on some of the families we get, the need is great,” said Gomes. “Because we get phone calls saying ‘we’re just out of food’ and disappointed that we’re just once a week (for distribution). We’ve been serving more families and then, of course, now we’re getting into Thanksgiving and Christmas and so people are looking for more food.”
Her husband, Frank Gomes, said the need goes up this time of year because many families rely on agriculture or construction jobs that wane after harvest season. He also said that mechanization has reduced the number of jobs available to families in Stanislaus County.
“Jobs get slow and then money is kind of short,” he said.
Mabel added that many families check around on food sources where they can.
“This is a huge gift for us because now we can use our dollars to go a little bit further from the donations we get,” she said. “Every week when we go to buy groceries … we’re discovering the prices going up. We’re buying less and, of course, we have to give less.”
The food donated last week will also help the parish supplement Thanksgiving and Christmas food baskets.
The food program at St. Vincent de Paul Society relies on parishioner donations to buy food that is distributed to needy families.
“I won’t say that we struggle but we go from discount stores to discount store looking for these items every week to fill the need,” said Mrs. Gomes.
Food is often purchased from Second Harvest in Manteca, Costco and Cost Less Foods which offer discounts.
St. Vincent DePaul Society of Ceres distributes food to needy Stanislaus County families every Wednesday from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Amounts of food given depends on family size.
“We don’t turn anyone away,” said Gomes.
United Samaritan officials in Turlock told Bigelow that their $9,000 worth of food goods would provide about a thousand meals to the needy.
This year the local Dot Foods warehouse invited four local food pantries to select $9,000 worth of products from Dot’s inventory for a combined donation of $36,000 in food. Eight DOT employees took a break from their regular jobs to make the delivery to the Ceres parish as well as the St. Vincent De Paul at St. Anthony’s in Manteca, the Modesto Gospel Mission and United Samaritans in Turlock.
“We do it at all of our distribution centers across the country,” said David Bigelow, general manager of the local DOT warehouse. “It’s a chance for us to partner with the local food banks and food pantries in our area. We give them a dollar amount and then they order from our warehouse any of the products we carry. It’s a companywide initiative that we’ve done annually for the 10 years or so.”
Bigelow said Dot is a family owned company and charitable giving “fits with our family values. It’s nice to be a part of that and help out the community where we can.”
Since March 2020, Dot Foods, Inc., the largest food industry redistributor in North America, has donated millions of dollars’ worth of food to organizations across the nation.
