Mission Gathering Church partners with Mama’s

The Mission Gathering Church believes that they are committed to being present to support the work of the local community organizations that seeks healing and justice in their city. The Church collaborates with Mama’s Kitchen to help prepare and serve meals every month to their homeless neighbors around San Diego.

The Mission Gathering Movement

The church’s website stated that they are a Progressive Church Planting Movement of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) that exists to be a dedicated community of Christ-followers designed to grow in faith, live purely, and seek justice for the good of their neighbors.

Moreover, they mentioned that they are communities of faith seeking to form a life-transforming hope, love, and imagination in the life and message of Jesus Christ as they simply long for as many people as possible to experience the same freedom, healing, and renewal.

Mama’s Kitchen

Mama’s Kitchen strives to give nutritional support to San Diego residents at risk of malnutrition due to severe illnesses such as HIV, cancer, congestive heart failure, type two diabetes, and chronic kidney disease, as posted on the organization’s website.

They even mentioned that they continue to strive to assist their clients in staying healthy, preserving their dignity, and keeping their families together by providing free delivered meals, pantry services, and nutrition education.

More importantly, the said organization believes that everyone deserves to acquire necessities of life, such as nutritious food, as noted on their website. They highlighted that their services enrich the health and well-being of people and families vulnerable to malnutrition because of their critical illness.

Mama’s Kitchen Programs

The said organization set three categories for their programs: Home-Delivered Meal Service, Nutrition Education, and Mama’s Pantry & Emergency Foof Assistance Program.

According to them, the Home-Delivered Meal Service is the only complete no-cost meal delivery and nutrition program available for residents of San Diego who are suffering from severe illnesses. In their annual report in 2020, they reported that this program breaks down hindrances to healthy nutrition by preparing and delivering medically tailored meals to individuals.

Meanwhile, the report added that nutrition Education services give evidence-based applications focused on prevention, delay, disease management, and enhanced self-management. They highlighted that this program is done through Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) or nutrition counseling provided by their registered dietitians.

The last program Mama’s Kitchen mentioned is the pantry and emergency food assistance program. It is a grocery pantry open to HIV-positive San Diego residents whose income does not exceed $1,500 each month or those who deal with an emergent need for food assistance.

COVID-19 Emergency Response Impact

Based on their annual report in 2020, Mama’s Kitchen is prepared to respond to the increase in hospitalization and death worldwide, and the government implemented the California-stay-at-home order on March 19, 2020.

In the report, there was a 63% increase in demand for their home-delivered meal service since the pandemic, which means cooking and delivering 5,700 additional meals each week. The organization stated that they added 26 new delivery routes, going from 36 to 62 lanes. They also mentioned that there were 8,484 meals to 707 clients delivered as of May 29, 2020, which is the highest number they had ever served in one day throughout their 30-year history.