Almost one year ago, Debra Childers started the Feeding the Flock Ministry for the Rock Church in El Cajon. An accomplishment for anyone who dares to dream, for Childers, the ministry is a major feat of faith considering the odds against her.
Almost one year ago, Debra Childers started the Feeding the Flock Ministry for the Rock Church in El Cajon. An accomplishment for anyone who dares to dream, for Childers, the ministry is a major feat of faith considering the odds against her.
Every single day of her life for the past five years, Childers has constant pain due to Regional Sympathetic Dystrophy, a nerve disorder she suffers after having broken her ankle. She went from trotting the globe in full-time work as a chef to spending her days on the living room couch. When she craved cooking up something for her husband and son, Childers would sit on a stool to prepare the meals.
Though she still fights the pain every day, she has learned to live with it. But a little more than a year ago, she decided that she wanted to do something for other people using her love of cooking. Almost instantaneous response flooded in from people when she created Feeding the Flock Ministry. Initially, she prepared meals for shut-ins. In the past year, the ministry has expanded with hand-delivered meals, fresh produce and baked goods going to low-income families and homeless as well as shut-ins.
“Just today, we had ten more shut-ins added to our list. They usually are seniors living in complexes,” Childers said, as she checked the data on her laptop.
The ministry also does an outreach the 3rd Saturday of the month. Last weekend, they cooked up street tacos and rice at Wells Park for everyone.
“The latest group of people to whom the home-cooked meals go is latch-key kids. The need is just unreal in East County, particularly in El Cajon,” Childers said.
The calls for requests for food and meals come to Childers all day, every day. Filling such a huge need would be impossible without volunteers. A year ago, Childers had no volunteers to help with cooking and deliveries, but now Feeding the Flock has 54 volunteers. Those volunteers served 3,627 persons and families. That is up from 1,248 persons and families last April.
“I couldn’t do this without the volunteers,” said Childers.
Lisa Jacovino, one of the newest volunteers, started helping out on Tuesday evenings, coming to the Childers’ home to pick up food.
“I’ve met a lot of students at Mueller College where I attend school who really need the food,” said Jacovino. “This evening, they will get a lot of produce, a large bag of chips, and some homemade marmalade with its recipe by Debra.”
Though Childers and her husband Jim sometimes use money out of their own pockets, she is constantly filing for grants. They also receive donations of food from markets around the county. Fresh & Easy is one of their biggest suppliers of produce, as is Zion Market. The ministry also receives pastries from Paris Baguette and occasionally meats from East County Transitional Living Center.
Since families and individuals do receive so much produce, Debra includes one of her own recipes, such as for orange marmalade.
“It’s incredible how much produce we get,” said Jim Childers, who drives his own truck around the La Mesa neighborhood making deliveries. “The produce can weigh up to 70 pounds for each family’s delivery. I wonder if my truck will make it sometimes.”
Childers said when he expressed concern to the Zion Market owner about all the produce they were giving away, the owner reassured him that they were helping to prevent waste.
“When the market does have bad produce—because with produce there is always some stuff you just can’t use for food—they give it to us so that we can use it for compost in the El Cajon Community Garden,” Jim Childers said.
The ministry is a win-win for both givers and receivers, even when it takes a lot of time to make the deliveries. Jim Childers said that he had to consider a while whether or not he wanted to spend so much time helping his wife with the ministry.
“Now it’s part of my life. I just get back so much from the people. I get hugs and smiles and sometimes they’ll come by our house and give us cookies or applesauce or something they’ve made from the produce. You can’t beat that,” he said.
“This ministry was my vision, but all the volunteers are doing most of the work,” said Debra Childers, who is simply not physically strong enough to do everything she wants in the ministry. Sometimes she ends up in the hospital, as she did just a couple of months ago.
“I know I can count on the volunteers to keep everything running smoothly,” she said. “And it’s giving them a chance to serve, which they all want to do.”
Feeding the Flock still has one more need: a commercial kitchen. Childers hopes to find one in East County.
