Asbury United Methodist Church Hosts Food Pickup Event

Hundreds of families received boxes of food from Asbury United Methodist Church on Saturday.

The church gave out more than 1,000 boxes of food from the federal government as part of the "Farmers to Families" program.

Related: Asbury United Methodist Church To Become COVID-19 Vaccination Site

“All different kinds of families. The cool thing we’ve actually gotten to know some people coming through the line. They recognize our volunteers and our volunteers recognize them," Asbury UMC director of outreach Jim Davis said.

Davis said it takes a lot of work to get the food out to families.

“Helping make a small difference in everybody’s life in a very difficult time. There’s nothing but great things and I’m just a pebble in the sand of everybody doing the work," volunteer John Celoni said.

Celoni has been there for each of the 19 food distributions held at his church.

“We’re in this together and we’ll figure it out and the stories that come out of it are so heart touching and heartwarming," Celoni said.

The assembly line runs like a well-oiled machine. The volunteers have even timed their work. It takes 22 minutes for a car to get in line, load up with food and go on its way.

"Yet we can’t forget that we are serving people, and so, the smiles, the eye contact is more important than efficiency, but we like to have both," Davis said.

Davis said they average around 600 cars during each distribution and encourage families to take an extra box with them and give it to a neighbor. Church officials said they hope to have another food giveaway next weekend.