Volunteers unload huge church food donation at Cupboard

Some of the dozens of volunteers who showed up pass boxes of donated food through to the Community Cupboard. Menifee 24/7 photos by Doug Spoon

Responding on a few days' notice, dozens of volunteers came to the parking lot behind the Menifee Valley Community Cupboard on Saturday to unload a semi truck full of donated food.

The donation -- pallets of boxed non-perishable food items -- amounted to 42,000 pounds of food that will benefit members of the Menifee community. The truckload of donated food is one of about 130 such deliveries being made in the U.S. and other parts of the world by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Michael Gray and Lesa Sobek are two leaders in the Mormon church who were instrumental in securing one of the truckloads for the residents of Menifee. The donations will be distributed through the Menifee Valley Community Cupboard, which helps feed those in need year-round from its facility in the Cherry Hills Plaza in the Sun City community in Menifee.

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does a lot of humanitarian projects throughout the world, and each year toward the end of the year, they take inventory of what they have to help with people’s needs, food and so forth," said Gray, who serves as President of the Menifee Stake in the LDS Church. "This year, there was a surplus of food to donate.

"Church leaders made a decision to reach out to communities throughout the United States and different parts of the world. We’re just so fortunate in Menifee that we get to unload and distribute 42,000 pounds of food to the community."

After Church leaders made Gray aware of the program, he contacted Sobek, a member of the Menifee City Council. She wrote the grant that resulted in Menifee's selection for one of the donation truckloads.

"Because of our partnership with the Cupboard and the community, we were granted this," Sobek said. "I wrote in the grant that we are involved in the community with SWAG [Social Work Action Group] and that between us and Community Cupboard, we helped many in the community. I added that Mt. San Jacinto College has just opened up a food pantry for their young adults at the college. All of those things together are going to be served through this.

"I’m grateful we’re going to be able to bless and help so many people, especially at this holiday time. Maybe nobody will go hungry. It’s a gesture of goodwill to our community."

Dawn Prather Smith, director of the Community Cupboard, said the extra boxes of food were being carried into a vacant store next to the Cupboard provided by Stephen Tapley, owner of the building. She estimated the donation was about twice that collected during the last Letter Carriers Drive, in which residents leave donations by their mail box for letter carriers to bring to the site.

"This will enable us to expand the holiday baskets beyond just the traditional foods," Smith said about the donated food given to residents in need. "There will be an enhanced distribution. We do a distribution of our perishables every Friday; we will be enhancing those bags as well.

"Right now, most people get enough food here that might be good for a week, week and a half. People are very frugal and they know how to budget that food. This is an overwhelming blessing on top of that, to make the food baskets go so much further."

Smith said that although residents need to qualify for ongoing support from the Community Cupboard, anyone who walks in the door will be helped, at least initially.

"They can come down and tell us they need food and we’ll get them started," Smith said. "They will ultimately have to qualify. But someone who walks in who needs food does not walk out without food. Even if they don’t eventually qualify, they obviously have a momentary crisis."

Volunteers from throughout Menifee gathered to help in the unloading of the food donations.

The entire Menifee Stake LDS Presidency of Presidents Gray, Todd Elkins and Jerhi Wilcox attended. Also in attendance representing the city were City Council member Greg August and Planning Commissioners Robert Karwin and Chris Thomas.

"It's a good day for the city of Menifee," August said. "These types of efforts to help people in need are not uncommon for Lesa Sobek, for the Church, and also for Dawn Prather Smith and the people at the Cupboard."

Thomas, a member of the Mormon church, said he knows full well the impact of the help both the Church and Community Cupboard provides to those in need.

"Years ago, I switched jobs and we had no money," Thomas recalled. "We lived on this type of food donation for six months. It got us back on our feet and financially we’re great now. But during this transition period, it saved our family. I can respect what they do here."

So many volunteers showed up that some were put to work assembling food baskets from current supplies.

Members of the LDS Church, City and Community Cupboard leadership teams supervised the event.