A staff member at The Food Depot in Santa Fe helps unload pallets of soup mixes packed by Meals of Hope volunteers at a service project hosted Oct. 30 by the Rotary Club of Los Alamos. Photo by Oliver Morris

By LINDA HULL
Vice President
Rotary Club of Los Alamos

“Rotary Club President Oliver Morris recently delivered 25,000 servings of dried chicken, rice and vegetable soup to The Food Depot in Santa Fe that the Rotary Club of Los Alamos and community volunteers packed Saturday, Oct. 30.  

The meals will be distributed to area food pantries, including LA Cares in Los Alamos. A portion of the food, with other supplies provided through a $4,000 Rotary District grant, will be distributed Nov. 13 and Dec. 4 directly by Rotary to two Chapter Houses in the Navajo Nation. The funds enabling the Rotary Club to support this project were generated through the July fundraiser, Brews, Band, and BBQ.

The Rotary Club would like to thank all volunteers for their support and service in the Meals of Hope project and the Crossroads Bible Church for graciously providing the use of its facilities as it did last year. 

“Unfortunately we did not receive the final box of bags for the soup mix and were short packaging 15,000 meals,” Project leader Laura Gonzales said. “Meals of Hope will ship the remaining 15,000 meals directly to The Food Depot in Santa Fe, so we will meet our promised quota. I am so sorry that we were unable to hold the third session and that we had to cut the sessions short. Next time we hold this event, we will only schedule two sessions, as that will be sufficient to package these meals and we can ensure everyone can participate.”