CORONAVIRUS UPDATES
What God's Kitchen Is Doing During This Crisis
Everyone is probably wondering how we at God's Kitchen are handling the current situation with Coronavirus. We are still delivering about 250 meals each week. So far we have only experienced one of our delivery clients contracting the virus and he is at the hospital and doing fine. His family is also quarantined at home. None of our volunteers were exposed and/or showing any symptoms at this time.
We have put in place some simple rules to protect our volunteers and the people that we deliver to. Both groups fit the "at risk" categories so we have taken the precautions that were needed at this time.
- All volunteers are supplied with hand sanitizer and are expected to use it when needed. We also have some masks being supplied as needed.
- Meals are being picked up only by the Executive Director and delivered to all the volunteers who drive our routes.
- Deliveries are no longer handed to the clients at the door they are left in coolers at the doorstep.
- All drivers blow their horn to alert the clients that they have arrived to drop off the deliveries.
- All volunteers are to give an overly friendly wave to the clients as they depart.
Fortunately for us, many of our volunteers have some kind of health care background. From retired firefighters/EMT to CNA's and professional home care givers, we know how to employ a common sense approach to infection control procedures. Communication is #1 with us and all of our volunteers. Every day our volunteers report back on the status of their route and the clients health status. We have lost a couple volunteers who had underlying health issues. They have reassured us that they will return once the virus threat subsides.
Please continue to pray for our drivers and clients, both for their safety on the road and from the virus. Believe me it can be crazy out there!
I will be adding other notes like this just to keep you up to speed on the great things that God is doing in this ministry.
Warmest Regards,
Dennis Childers, Executive Director
God's Kitchen Updates
This month has been a rough month. Coronavirus has been hard to deal with in many areas, hitting our food programs on all levels. Food kitchens have had to work with less supplies of meat and bread despite their number of clients being served increasing. We have been looking for ways to help our friends at the Interlachen soup kitchen to ease the burden they face every day trying to feed their clientele.
Recently Pastor Mark Chumney of Victory Christian Fellowship in East Palatka came to our rescue with a contact in Jacksonville at Feed Northeast FL. For the past four weeks we have been able to use this resource through Pastor Mark to provide ongoing meals to our clients at God's Kitchen. This has taken the burden off the Interlachen Soup Kitchen where we normally get our meals and also allowed us to expand our client base.
In addition this month we lost one of our own. Mr. Kevin Wright was a great volunteer who operated and developed our downtown Palatka route and also served on the Board of Directors for the past two years. Kevin was a great man of God who loved his church and God's Kitchen. We will miss him dearly but we know he is with the Lord. New volunteers have also stepped in to fill Kevin's route and to date they are supporting clients regularly in downtown Palatka.
I also want to thank our volunteers who deliver our food to all the clients. We are masked and wear gloves as we get our food loaded and delivered which makes us look like a bunch of bandits getting ready for our next caper. These brave volunteers take a risk each time they deliver to people during this crisis. Please continue to pray for all of our volunteers, clients as well as the Interlachen Soup Kitchen, all doing God's work throughput Putnam County.
Dennis Childers, Executive Director
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