After the floor was prepared, the insulated walls for the pallet-wide cooler were quickly set in place.

Since the founding of San Pablo Lutheran Church in the 1980s, it has dedicated its efforts towards offering food assistance to the struggling community.  There have been different ways they’ve offered this help, from giving out rounds of cheese, butter, milk, to offering small bags full of non-perishable items.

“The reason YLM exists is to help churches carry on the Great Commission,” Rev. Dr. Karl Heimer, CEO of YLM and senior pastor of San Pablo, explained, “We are here to facilitate, to be a bridge, to help churches connect with communities.  It’s a joy to be able to assist churches like San Pablo, Zion, CrossPoint, Ascension, and those throughout the United States and in Mexico.”

Concrete pad was poured in the first week of May

As food insecurity increases in El Paso, and across the border in Mexico, San Pablo and YLM have worked together to help families put food on their table.  The need to centralize the Emergency Food Program became obvious when COVID brought changes to the way things were being done.

“We used to register and distribute the food in the kitchen,” Miguel Muñoz, Donations and Distributions Facilitator of YLM and member of San Pablo, explained, “It was a good process, but we had to bring in all the non-perishables from the warehouse on the other side of the campus all the way to where the kitchen is located.”

Once COVID made it impossible to gather in the kitchen, the Drive-Thru Food Pantry was organized to take place at the main entrance of the campus.

Gravel and concrete make the roads smoother to manage, especially on rainy days

“We still had to bring the perishable items from the kitchen where we store them in the walk-in cooler,” Scott Juengel, Missions and Ministry Facilitator of San Pablo Lutheran Church, shared, “Then we had to bring all the non-perishable items from the Food Warehouse to the main entrance.  What we needed was a way to centralize the entire food distribution to one location.”

The dream of having a pallet-wide cooler within the Food Warehouse became a prayer, along with the need of a concrete driveway to make the use of the forklift easier on rainy days.  God’s answer to this prayer came through our brothers and sisters in Christ from Trinity Lutheran Church in Stamford, Connecticut.

Concrete pad took two weeks to fully set

After Trinity found out about the food ministry and its impact on the communities of El Paso and Juarez, they send in a donation to make the dream of a pallet-wide cooler a reality.

Now, with everything in one location, and thanks to a donation of gravel to smooth out the ground around the concrete pad in front of the Food Warehouse, the transition of moving from the main entrance to the warehouse has taken place.

“It’s an easier process,” Maritza Muñoz, member of San Pablo and long-time volunteer at YLM, shared, “We have all the food donated brought to the Food Warehouse, then we give it all out every Saturday morning to over 200 people who come, either on foot or in their vehicles.”

Thank the LORD for all His blessings, and many thanks to all of our brothers and sisters in Christ, not just those in Trinity Lutheran in Stamford, who helped answer this prayer, but to everyone who supports this area of mercy.