How do skyrocketing gas prices affect Modesto-area group’s mission to feed the poor?
Think you pay a lot at the pump? Try paying to fill the gas tanks of the United Samaritan Foundation’s three trucks and two vans that deliver lunch weekdays throughout Stanislaus County.
The five vehicles delivered 129,584 free meals in the first five months of this year to homeless people, single moms and their kids, the working poor, seniors struggling to make ends meet, and others on the margins. The trucks and vans rack up about 1,650 miles a month delivering meals in church parking lots, mobile home and RV parks, in parks, senior centers and neighborhoods.
The Turlock-based nonprofit spent $3,500 for gas in May, up from $2,100 in January, said Linda Murphy-Julien, its executive director. She said United Samaritans also is seeing fewer donations as its donors cope with inflation. It also is seeing rising demand for food.
United Samaritans’ primary mission is serving lunch from its trucks and vans. Murphy-Julien said during the first five months of 2021 the trucks and vans served 114,003 lunches. The number of lunches increased 13.7% during the first five months of this year. Murphy-Julien said the percentage would be higher if the truck that serves Hughson had not been off the road for 14 days.
The United Samaritans’ Modesto truck makes 10 stops a day Monday through Friday, including the Sunrise Village Home & RV Park on Seventh Street. One woman who lives in the park picked up lunches for herself, her husband, their son and her mother-in-law, as well as two 5-pound bags of potatoes Friday.
“Every day for about a year,” said the woman when asked how often she gets lunch from the truck. She declined to give her name. She said she has lived in the park for about four years but didn’t need the lunch truck until losing her job a year ago because of the pandemic.
Without the United Samaritans, the woman said, “I’d eat breakfast, but that would be about it. I’d be hungry. These people are a big blessing.”
United Samaritans prepares the food in its commercial kitchens and serves it on its food trucks. It serves three hot meals a week like chicken with pasta and a veggie with fresh fruit and maybe a roll. It serves sandwiches with such sides as fresh fruit, chips, cookies or doughnuts twice a week. Lunches can come with a small carton of milk or water.
The Modesto lunch truck on Friday served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, raspberry yogurt, pretzels and milk. People could get bananas and 5-pound bags of potatoes.
Murphy-Julien said if gas prices remain high and United Samaritans can’t get more funding to offset the cost it may have to deliver the five weekday meals over fewer days, say five meals over four days or three days. But she said that is something the nonprofit does not want to do.
She said for many of the people it feeds it provides the only meal of their day and wants to continue to be a consistent presence in their lives. She said many of them live in food deserts.
Murphy-Julien said many nonprofits feed people but what makes United Samaritans unique is it brings meals to where poor people live, poor people who may not have a car. “We go to where the poverty and the need is,” she said. “That is the crux of what we do.”
She said so far United Samaritans has met the rising demand. She said someone will drop off a dozen cardboard boxes of fresh peaches or oranges or someone will offer an injured cow he has to put down. Murphy-Julien said that is $400 or $500 of hamburger for United Samaritans.
She said her nonprofit also has benefited from Senate Bill 1383, the state’s effort to keep food waste and other organic waste out of landfills. The waste releases methane gas and contributes to climate change. The effort includes having people consume some of the edible food that used to end up in landfills.
Murphy-Julien said her nonprofit has partnerships with four restaurants that provide United Samaritans with safe, high-quality food they have prepared but did not sell.
She said United Samaritans needs donations of food, money to purchase food and keep its quarter-century-old food trucks on the road, and volunteers to help prepare and deliver the meals. The donated food includes peanut butter, canned tuna and chicken, pasta and other canned and shelf-stable foods.
Monetary donations can be made on the nonprofit’s website, https://unitedsamaritans.org, or by sending a check to the United Samaritans Foundation, 220 South Broadway, Turlock, CA 95380. You can also call USF at 209-668-4853 to learn more.
