A Whalley church this week expects to pack brown bag lunch number 10,000, for people in need at Surrey Urban Mission.
Since April 1, volunteers at the City Centre Church have been making sandwiches for lunch, packed along with a piece of fruit. Their breakfast is yogurt.
“They’re coming up to serving 10,000 meals,” Surrey Councillor Jack Hundial said Wednesday. “I think they do about 700 plus a week. And it’s all volunteers.”
Councillor Brenda Locke told the Now-Leader a core group of volunteers at her Presbyterian church, with a congregation of about 80 members, has religiously been packing meals for the mission, the Cove, and “the odd time we send them to the emergency response centre too.”
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Locke said Surrey Urban Mission had lost a lot of volunteers, many of them seniors, “who just couldn’t come in and do the food program so easily” any more.
“It was just because the pandemic made it so difficult for them, you know they were losing volunteers
The church is located at 13062 104th Ave.
The Cove is a 42-bed emergency shelter, at 10607 King George Blvd. and Surrey Urban Mission, at 10776 King George, has been serving Whalley since 1985.
Once the breakfasts and lunches are ready, a driver from Surrey Urban Mission then comes to pick them up.
“We got a small grant to start it up, but I’ve got to tell you, honestly, the people of Surrey are amazing,” Locke said. “They have given. People have given so much, it’s just unbelievable. We haven’t really had to buy very much.”
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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