Parish promises to help poor before themselves

Intermountain Catholic

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Renovating the food bank means removing all the food and shelving and storing it in a trailer borrowed from the Utah Food Bank, then returning everything before the next pantry day.

MIDVALE — A little rain and cold weather didn’t deter men, women, and children from throwing their time and energy into helping renovate the St. Therese of the Child Jesus Parish food bank. The only parish-based neighborhood food bank in the Salt Lake Valley, St. Therese Parish volunteers were joined by members of the Knights of Columbus (K of C), and Rotary Club members from Taylorsville and Midvale. The goal was to renovate the food bank over several weekends while closing the facility down completely as few days as possible.

"This is a big job," said St. Therese Pastor Father Martin Diaz. "But it needs to be done. This year the parish decided we would help the poor before we help ourselves, so some parish projects will wait."

As a neighborhood food bank, the St. Therese facility gets regular shipments of food, diapers, and personal items from the Salt Lake Food Bank, which they distribute to their 40-80 clients.

"We don’t have any location or income restrictions," Fr. Diaz said. "We ask that people come to us only once a month. That way we can be certain we’ll have enough for everyone."

In addition to reflooring the house-sized food bank, the parish will add seven refrigerators through generous donations from the Rotary Club of Midvale and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Humanitarian Services. The project, which includes renovating the parish’s second-hand clothing bank, is organized and led by Joe Ortiz, a grand knight of the parish K of C chapter.

"Our knights and parishioners, both Hispanic and Anglo have been very supportive of this project," said Fr. Diaz. "They all have been very generous with time, talent, and treasure to make this renovation a reality."

For more than 15 years the parish clothing bank was organized by Edilia Romero. At her retirement, it has been taken over by Guadalupe Huerta.

"Renovating the food bank will make it easier to move to a client-choice system rather then people picking up pre-bagged groceries and supplies they may not want," Fr. Diaz said.

The crew began working on the project Oct. 19, preparing the old floor to be covered, cleaning, and moving large items to the yard. When additional volunteers arrived the next day, the sub-flooring began, and hundreds of trips were made from the house to a borrowed Utah Food Bank trailer.

"This project is long overdue," said parishioner Teri Mueller. "The floor is in bad shape, and the house gets very crowded. We hope the renovations will give us better organization and more room."

See more on this project in future issues of the Intermountain Catholic.