Groceries and God: Temecula Church to join national food program

By: NICOLE SACK - Staff Writer | Monday, February 18, 2008 10:28 PM PST ∞

TEMECULA -- Pastor Jonathan Maxey knows the power of dignity can be stronger than hunger and the idea of a handout can sour a stomach worse than pangs caused by missing meals.

Maxey, however, also understands the appeal of buying food at a bargain. Buying $60 worth of food for the cost of $30 is thrifty, and a reason why Grace of Temecula Valley African Methodist Episcopal Church soon might become a very popular place to purchase food.

This month, the church at 28073 Diaz Road became an official host site for Angel Food Ministries, a nonprofit, nondenominational organization that began in 1994 feeding 34 families in Monroe, Ga. The group now serves more than 500,000 meals per month in more than 35 states.

Maxey said he expected that 10 or 15 people would seek food from the program, which is new to Southwest Riverside County. But in the past 10 days, his church has taken 100 orders.

"Just looking at the overall economy, the real estate market and the subprime situation, we thought there were a lot of people who are suffering and don't have the resources they did a year ago," he said. "More and more of people's disposable income is getting eaten up by rising fuel costs, rising food costs and energy costs. What we have found (is) there is a greater need than we realized."

Grace of Temecula Valley's involvement with the meals program comes in the wake of the church serving as a distribution site for the Toys for Tots gift drive in December.

"With the successful implementation of Toys for Tots, we knew we had to do more," said Risa Maxey, the pastor's wife and a leader at the church. "The number of people, the families, the children that were helped this past Christmas season was unbelievable. But there still existed a need. After the holidays, after the toys ... the people needed to eat."

She said Grace of Temecula Valley applied to be a host site for the meal program in November and was approved in January. The way the program works is the church takes orders up to a certain date, then purchases the food from Angel Food Ministries, which in turn delivers the shipments.

Church volunteers will drive to Norco to pick up the food shipment March 1 and drive it back to the church's fellowship hall where an assembly line will be made to fill orders. Only two hours are provided for the clients to pick up their food, after which, any prepaid orders not claimed will be donated to a local food pantry.

"The whole idea is that you don't have to be a huge church to do this," Risa Maxey said. "We don't have the desire or the capability to store any leftover food. Plus, there are too many hungry people that need to eat."

A large appeal of the program is that it offers the same quality of food that can be purchased at a grocery store. There are no secondhand items, damaged goods or dented cans, Jonathan Maxey said.

"We did our due diligence and checked out the quality of the food, and the reputation of the company to make sure this would be food that we would provide in our homes," he said.

Each month's $30 menu is different than the previous month and the meals can generally feed a family of four for about a week or a single senior citizen for about a month.

This month the menu includes sirloin strip steaks, split chicken breasts, breaded chicken breast fillets, beef ribs, pork chops, peanut butter, chicken soup, frosted corn flakes, sliced pears, frozen corn and carrots, and fresh onions and potatoes.

The program has caught the attention of the federal government, as well as religious leaders such as television evangelist Joel Osteen, who appears in promotional and training videos for the program.

Angel Food Ministries received a $6.97 million loan for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2006, under President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which aims to assist charitable work. The loan helped pay for the organization's warehouse site in Georgia, the installation of large freezers and coolers, and fuel.

Another draw of the program is that you don't have to be poor to take part in it.

Risa Maxey said there are no qualifications to meet or complex paperwork to fill out. There is just a one-page order form for a person's name, address and phone number, as well as a checklist to indicate how many of the $30 boxes of food are desired and what additional special orders the applicant might want.

"That's the only thing they need to fill out," she said. "We don't want to be all in your business. We're not here to ask a lot of questions. There are people who are shy and embarrassed and don't want to ask for help. You have to respect their dignity."

While there are churches in Riverside, Moreno Valley, Norco, Ontario and Corona that are members of the ministry, Grace of Temecula Valley is the southernmost distribution site in this region.

Maxey said the need for the program in San Diego County seems evident by the number of people from that there who have made orders with Grace.

"What we really want to happen is for people to enjoy this so much that they want to start this at their church, in their community," Risa Maxey said.

People interested in ordering food for a March 29 shipment may place an order with the church until March 17. No additional orders are being accepted for the March 1 pickup.

"If there are two things I want people to know about this operation is that it is here for anyone who wants or needs it," Jonathan Maxey said. "And (this church) is here for anyone who needs us."

To place an order, call (951) 506-2425 or go to Grace of Temecula Valley, 28073 Diaz Road, Suites G-I, in Temecula. Or visit www.angelfoodministries.com.

-- Contact staff writer Nicole Sack at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or nsack@californian.com.