A lack of food and money donations - and perhaps some community
politics - has forced the temporary closure of the Redding Loaves and
Fishes food bank, director Chris S. said Wednesday.
"I've never had to turn people away until today," he said Tuesday,
the first day the nonprofit organization was closed. "Donations are
just down, and I would assume that it's because people are on
vacation. Giving isn't on people's minds this time of year."
But he suspects politics also are impeding the flow of donations.
"I do believe I'm being blackballed, but of course I can't point
fingers or say who, or why," Chris .S said.
In March, Chris S. spoke out against a plan by the Good News Rescue
Mission to stop serving needy and homeless people who had repeated
run-ins with police. The mission was struggling with problems of
chronic littering, illegal camping and trespassing, Executive Director
Jim Dahl had said.
Homeless advocates, police, and city and Shasta County officials met to
consider controlling the problem by placing a transient on a
"do-not-serve" list after three citations.
How to help
=B7 Redding Loaves and Fishes closed this week because it has not
received enough donations, but it is scheduled to reopen Sept. 5.
Meanwhile, here are ways to help:
=B7 For more information, call 241-1108 or go to
reddingloavesandfishes.com.
But Chris S. stands by the belief he shared then: Food should not be
denied even to those who break the law.
"For the stance that I've taken for the Lord, I've been swimming
upstream ever since," he said Wednesday.
Chris S. hopes to reopen Loaves and Fishes on Sept. 5, after the
program's supplies have built up again.
He took over the five-year-old program in November, he said. Neither he
nor a corps of about six volunteers are paid, he said.
Loaves and Fishes was giving away almost 1,000 grocery bags of food a
month and was open Tuesdays and most Saturdays. Chris S. was allowing
people to come twice monthly for food, but he had to reduce that to
once a month, he said.
"The numbers since January have just been crazy, and they haven't let
down," he said.
Shasta County refers many needy people to Loaves and Fishes, which is
the only food ministry open on Saturdays, Chris S. said. But he wishes
the county, the community's businesses and other nonprofit groups
would offer more help.
He said Regent Broadcasting in Redding hasn't returned his calls
requesting radio announcements and event coverage.
News Director Bob Belongie, who works for Regent's KQMS-AM station,
said the station gets about 20 public service announcement requests
daily, and Loaves and Fishes is not being discriminated against.
"There are just so many nonprofit organizations, and we are just
deluged.... We try to do as much as we can, but we have a finite amount
of airtime," he said.=20
http://www.reddingloavesandfishes.com/
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