It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and volunteers at Loaves and Fishes in Maryland Heights aren’t thinking of themselves.
A family of six has been serving at the nonprofit on the day before Thanksgiving for the past 10 years. On Wednesday, members of Maryville University’s women’s basketball team also stopped by to help serve food and clean up.
Head coach Brita Hand said the team tries to volunteer throughout the year across St. Louis.
“It’s really important to get out and be present, we’re very lucky to have the things we have,” Hand said Wednesday. “It always helps you to stay grounded knowing how lucky and fortunate you are to be a college athlete getting an education. And also to see the different areas you can make an impact on local communities.”
Hundreds of families received meal kits containing turkey, green beans, yams, turkey gravy and stuffing, rolls, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and more Wednesday at the organization’s resource center on Concourse Drive.
Casey Delanty, of Manchester, said it’s been a family tradition for 10 years. With her husband and sons, she stood in the warehouse Wednesday morning preparing bags of food and handing them to people as they drove up in their vehicles.
“The boys all know they have to get up and get out of bed to get out here and help,” Delanty said. “It’s a great way to start the holiday week.”
The nonprofit’s CEO, Jacki MacIntosh, said she started serving at the organization when she was 13 years old. She became the CEO earlier this year and was the executive director before that.
Loaves and Fishes used to have a church and Bible college attached to it, where MacIntosh’s father, Steven Verity, taught and pastored. In 1982, the church incorporated a food pantry and shelter, and became Loaves and Fishes. The organization is expanding from a small food pantry and shelter with an annual budget of $350,000 to a larger program trying now to reach a $5 million mark.
In addition to its food pantry and shelter, the group has a variety of prevention and outreach services.
“It’s a really special time, and there’s such a sense of family and a feeling of belonging here,” MacIntosh said. “We preach about dignity and respect and how we render our services that way, and we also treat our volunteers the same.”
Loaves and Fishes currently has two campuses in Maryland Heights — a resource center on Concourse Drive and a 29-bed family shelter less than five minutes away. MacIntosh said 60% of the shelter clients are children. The group recently decreased the number of administrators who go back and forth between the shelter and resource center to give families and individuals more of a sense of normalcy, she said.
MacIntosh said the reality is that homelessness and poverty last all year, as well as high grocery and utility bills. The group does meal distributions twice a year, one for Thanksgiving and another for Easter.
“People don’t understand how truly hard it is to overcome homelessness,” MacIntosh said. “Anybody that leaves this program going into their own house, I have nothing but respect for them because what they did was hard. We determine our success by how often a client comes back, when they’re still calling you and sharing their feelings and concerns, utilizing the pantry, and when they come in and they smile and their kids are happy.”
The food pantry currently serves about 3,000 clients and is working with about 750 people through its emergency shelter services. Since 2020, nonprofit leaders saw 60% growth in services rendered, MacIntosh said.
“We have multiple housing programs to get people off the streets,” MacIntosh added. “We can work with other shelters and make referrals, we have hotel vouchers for people trying to access shelters. There are a variety of ways we can help get someone off the street through our emergency shelter services.”
Last year, the nonprofit provided about 330,000 meals to clients and so far this year has provided almost 500,000 meals.
Andrew Delanty, 19, said he’s been coming to serve with his family since he was 8. He stood Wednesday next to his mother, Casey, helping to add sticks of butter and canned goods to the meal kits.
“It feels good to help out, and it’s something anyone can do,” said Delanty, a sophomore at the University of Missouri studying finance. “There was a one in a billion chance that I would be born, and I’m lucky enough to be able to help people.”
His younger brother Patrick, 12, stood behind his brothers dribbling a basketball inside the resource center.
“It’s fun,” Patrick said Wednesday. “Giving to people just feels good. I’m thankful to help people and give them food for Thanksgiving.” He added through a smile that he’s looking forward to eating pumpkin pie on Thursday.
