Prescott Joseph Feeds West Oakland’s Hungry
The West Oakland community has witnessed a parade of agencies coming into the community and suddenly disappearing, leaving needy community members to fend for themselves. Since the Prescott-Joseph Center is one of the longer lasting agencies in the area, with ten years and counting active involvement in the community, we hope to further materialize our commitment to the community we serve through the establishment of our new West Oakland Food Pantry. No other significant and consistent food distribution is done in the Lower Bottom area of West Oakland, leaving community members looking for food in areas closer to Berkeley and Emeryville. In an effort to provide more accessible food assistance to the area, we have partnered with the Alameda County Community Food bank and the Northern California Compassion Network (NCCN) to bring cost free resources into the community.
As a new program, we are currently testing the waters, therefore limiting the amount of service we provide the community. Nonetheless, we have assisted several families in the process, including clients of the Another Road to Safety program and the McClymond’s Family Support Services program as well as families referred to us by agency partners.
Although we are just starting, we believe that our success can be foreseen by the assistance we provided to two different families in emergency situations. One family of five, headed by a single father who was violently attacked and robbed right after he had cashed his week’s earnings, received a week’s worth of groceries as well as some clothes and diapers for his youngest child. The other family tragically suffered the loss of their home and all of their belonging by fire damage. That family was immediately provided with clothes, shoes, food, and baby supplies and was further assisted though the efforts of our Executive Director by the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, who granted the Prescott-Joseph Center funds to distribute at our discretion to the family for the purpose of finding and securing temporary housing.
Through the continued collaboration with our agency partners, the Northern California Compassion Network and the Alameda County Community Food Bank, we hope to slowly increase the amount of families we serve on a monthly basis. Thus far, we feel great reward in assisting the families we have and hope to continue to be equally rewarded in the future.