A local store had provided Belvedere Baptist Church with two big boxes and inside each was a skinny chicken, two dented cans of peas and some butter patties and a loaf of bread that had all been battered by the cans as they rolled around in the boxes.
Dan and Dave delivered the boxes and told the thankful families that God loved them. Over the next year, Dan and his wife Jacquie talked about the pitiful little amount of food in those boxes and that if they were going to show God's love and concern they should be giving out bountiful amounts of food.
So the next November, Dan and Jacquie gathered canned goods from friends at Belvedere Baptist Church and stored them in a tiny bedroom in their home. They then packed 40 heaping boxes of canned and dry goods. And, there were frozen turkeys donated by Channel 12.
The Belvedere deacons helped distribute the boxes and some were so moved by the unfortunate conditions they found that they came back with tears in their eyes asking if there were more boxes to take out.
One woman passed out when she received her box and later said she had never seen so much food.
Thus began what today is known as Feed the Hungry at Village Baptist Church, which includes:
• Giving out about 700 free boxes of food, bread, vegetables and meat a month to people of all races and religions from all over the area
• A food cooperative called Share that allows more than 100 families amonth to save about 50% on frozen meat and fresh vegetables and fruits
• Management of the Community Food Trucks, which transport more than 3 million pounds of food free for more than 120 local charities a year, including more than 1 million pounds of vegetables and fruits from Palm Beach County farms that otherwise would have been plowed under or taken to the landfill
• The Food Rescue program, which uses the refrigerated trucks to pick up and deliver unused, prepared food from hotels, restaurants and events to homeless shelters and soup kitchens rather than being thrown into dumpsters
From 1987 until 1994, the ministry was limited to Thanksgiving and Christmas
In 1995 the Shorters moved to Northwood Baptist (which later became Village Baptist) and that first Thanksgiving and Christmas they and the church members fed hundred of families.
During January 1996 it was decided to help people every month not just at the holidays.
Last year the free box program helped more than 4,500 unduplicated families and 18,000 individuals.
At the past holidays, we helped more than 30 small Haitian, Hispanic and African-American charities and ended up feeding more than 3,900 families at Thanksgiving and 3,000+ at Christmas and then providing toys to 2,000+ needy children.
Most of our more than monthly food box recipient families are headed by unemployed or under-employed, single moms with at least 3 children or grandparents living on a small pension who are raising abandoned grandchildren.
Assisting them is part of our mission to help end hunger in Palm Beach County.