1 month ago
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MENDOTA, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - Struggling families successful the Fresno County assemblage of Mendota are getting assistance from AMOR Wellness, but the nonprofit is doing much successful Mendota than conscionable filling nutrient boxes.
According to the Executive Director astatine the AMOR Wellness Center, Davena Witcher, it was astir 2015 erstwhile the nonprofit committee decided to bring assistance to the occidental portion of Fresno County.
"So we spent astir a twelvemonth to twelvemonth and a fractional talking to different agencies, some region and nonprofit and city, that had been moving retired successful the agrarian communities to fig retired wherever determination was a spread successful services," Witcher said.
Witcher says the champion mode to service the radical successful Mendota was to physique a azygous abstraction that aggregate organizations and agencies could usage to conscionable the community's needs. That became the AMOR Wellness Resource Center.
"We effort to beryllium a one-stop store for, you know, immoderate crushed that our families request retired here," Rural Program Supervisor Stephanie Franco said.
Franco says she sees the struggles and hardships that families who travel to AMOR flooded to fulfill their basal needs connected regular basis.
"What ever sticks to maine is however hard moving a batch of the families retired present are," Franco said. "Yet they inactive person a batch of different challenges. They request assistance with meeting, conscionable adjacent basal needs."
Franco says she grew up successful Firebaugh, not acold from Mendota, and understands each to good the existent beingness hurdles assemblage members face.
"We perceive a batch of stories from a batch of the families retired present and the challenges that they're facing," Franco said. "Sometimes it's heartbreaking to perceive those stories."
One request that AMOR consistently helps assemblage members conscionable is nutrient insecurity. A country astatine AMOR is dedicated to feeding 40 families each 2 weeks with groceries that Witchers says would different outgo those families $2,500.
"Families should not person to interest astir wherever their children are going to get their adjacent meal," Witcher said.
As portion of their dedication to battling nutrient insecurity, Witcher says AMOR dedicates the archetypal Tuesday of each period to a community-wide nutrient dispersal astatine the wellness center. Each Thanksgiving, AMOR adjacent goes arsenic acold arsenic to present Thanksgiving meals straight to families.
"When we present nutrient astatine Thanksgiving to the doors of these families, and the small children travel retired and spot what they're being given, the joyousness connected their faces is irreplaceable," Witcher said. "Just irreplaceable."
Though AMOR receives assistance from regular donors, Stacy Khun with AMOR says that the request this twelvemonth is peculiarly great.
"I consciousness precise grateful that we're successful a presumption that we tin springiness nutrient backmost to these families, erstwhile there's truthful galore that request them," Khun said. "Especially close present with, with benefits being cut."
Khun says AMOR volunteers and donors are precise overmuch needed and appreciated.
"If that means adjacent conscionable covering 1 pumpkin pie, that pumpkin pastry is going to spell consecutive to a family," Khun said. "There's nutrient that they tin marque stretch. They tin agelong it agelong capable to provender their families for longer than conscionable the 1 meal."
To volunteer, sojourn AMOR's website linked here, to donate to AMOR's Thanksgiving fundraiser, sojourn the nexus here.
Franco has volunteered and led unpaid teams to present Thanksgiving meals successful the past. She says thing beats the feeling of giving families thing to beryllium thankful for.
"The smiles accidental it all," Franco said. "When we're delivering adjacent the pie, I perceive the kids screaming, 'We got a pumpkin pie. We got a pumpkin pie.' That, to me, is much than enough. I whitethorn aftermath up sore the adjacent morning, but it's each worthy it."
