Father Joe’s Villages in downtown San Diego serves meals every day, but the one on Christmas Eve is special.
More than 60 volunteers with Father Joe's Villages' Franklin Antonio Public Lunch Program served a traditional holiday meal to more than 600 people at the shelter. The food was prepared by former residents who entered the shelter’s culinary training program.
“Today is special because unlike the usual daily meals that are buffet style, where people go up for the meal, here they’re served at the table, so it’s more like fine dining," said Jim Vargas, CEO of Father Joe's Villages. "We have even more volunteers to be able to accomplish that.”
Vargas blessed the meal before attendees feasted on roast turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes and cornbread. The food was prepared by former residents who entered the shelter’s culinary training program.
"The big thing is you have to thaw the turkeys for several days in advance," said Shannon Weston, a former Father Joe's resident who now works in the culinary program. "You see all these people here? It’s a whole lot of turkeys."
Year-round, Weston and his teammates serve meals three times a day to residents living in emergency and transitional housing and the city's bridge shelters, utilizing more than 18,000 pounds of food per day.
Father Joe's Villages regularly shelters more than 2,000 people each night and serves as many as 3,000 meals each day.
But for Father Joe Carroll, the founder of the shelter, meals provide the foundation for a lot more.
“Everything at Father Joe’s Villages begins with the meal," he said. "This means all these people getting food might get into our rehab programs. So it’s the beginning of a process."
More information about the organization can be found at my.neighbor.org.
