Reduced-price food coming
to Gallup needy DOWN TO STORY

ABOVE: Corrine Gallegos looks over a shipment of food at the Joshua Generation for Jesus church on Friday. The church participates in the Angel Food Ministries program which helps local families stretch their food dollars. BELOW: Dennis Gallegos drives a forklift full of food while truck driver Juan Escobar waits at the Joshua Generation for Jesus on Friday afternoon. The church participates in the Angel Food Ministries program which helps local families stretch their food dollars.— © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — As food and fuel prices climb, Gail Valdez knows that more people are struggling to pay for groceries.
That’s why Valdez, the local volunteer director for Angel Food Ministries, donates about 40 hours a month to bring truck loads of food — at greatly discounted prices — for purchase by area families. And that’s also why Valdez hopes more area residents will take advantage of the national food distribution program.

Angel Food Ministries is a nonprofit program that was founded by Emmanuel Praise Church, a non-denominational church in Monroe, Ga., to help provide quality food at discounted prices to local families. Through the years, the program has steadily spread to communities across the country. Each month, families have the opportunity to order boxes of food — about $80 worth of food for $30, according to Valdez — that gets trucked in and delivered to a local distribution site.

Joshua Generation for Jesus, located at 1375 Elva Drive in Gallup, serves as the distribution site for the Four Corners Region and Albuquerque. The Rev. Danny Yazzie of the Church of God in Manuelito first brought Angel Food Ministries to the region, Valdez said. However, Yazzie’s ailing health led him to ask another church to take over the program, she explained. Dennis and Corrine Gallegos, co-pastors of the non-denominational Joshua Generation for Jesus, agreed, and Valdez, a longtime church member, stepped forward to run the program.

Valdez believes the program significantly helps stretch the food dollars of participants, particularly minimum wage earners, single-parents, and those on fixed incomes. However, she added, the program is open to people of all income levels.

The menu for food boxes changes each month, Valdez said, and participants aren’t obligated to order if the menu doesn’t interest them. Participants who want to order must purchase a “regular box” at $30, which is said to have enough food to feed a family of four for a week, or a “senior box” for $28, which contains 10 fully-cooked, ready-to-heat balanced meals. Participants can also purchase special boxes of food that range from meat packages to fresh fruit and vegetable boxes priced at about $21 each. In addition, Angel Food occasionally offers special holiday food boxes.

“They have to buy the box (regular or senior) to get the specials,” Valdez said, and all orders must be prepaid with either cash, a money order, or food stamps.

The program is able to offer the food boxes at discount prices because Angel Food Ministries buys in bulk like major grocery store chains, Dennis Gallegos said, and anyone from the local community is welcome to order food boxes through Joshua Generation.

“We’re here to help the whole community ... ” Gallegos said. “This is a place of great need,” he added.

Regional churches are also welcome to join the program, Valdez said. One church in Thoreau, one in Montezuma Creek, Utah, and three Albuquerque churches place orders for people in their home communities and then send trucks to pick up the orders from Joshua Generation.

“We’d be willing to work with any church wanting to get on board,” Valdez said, who explained participating churches get a small financial rebate for placing orders.

The October menu is now available, and its regular box features 16 items total, which includes seven meats, two packages of frozen vegetables, pasta and marinara sauce, punch, milk, corn tortillas, eggs, and a dessert item. Angel Food Ministries does reserve the right to make food substitutions if it runs out of a particular menu item.

According to ministry literature, some substitutions have been made because of a dramatic increase in orders and supply difficulties due to recent natural disasters

Valdez generally takes orders for each month’s food shipment during the first two weeks of the month. For the October order that will be distributed on Saturday, Oct. 25, Valdez will accept orders in the church office from noon to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Sept. 30, Oct. 2, 7, and 9. Participants are asked to pick up their orders at 8 a.m. on the Saturday distribution day. Food that hasn’t been picked by 10 a.m. will be donated to others because the church doesn’t have refrigerators or freezers to store it

Dennis Gallegos is pleased that Joshua Generation is able to offer Angel Food Ministries to the local community. The program allows people to get a good deal on groceries, he said, but still keep their dignity by paying for their food.

“You pay a little bit, you get a lot,” he said.

Information: Gail Valdez at (505) 863-2688 or www.angelfoodministries.com