There are many students in the Vista Unified School District who are hungry, homeless or both, VTO provides easy access on campus food pantries filled with food and hygiene kits to any student in need.
Vista Teen Outreach throughout the school year provides students with backpacks, which contains food to help them through the weekend. This is the 4th year that they have put together a Thanksgiving dinner for the teens families. Last year they delivered turkey dinners to 200 families and this year they delivered meals to 1150 people 220 families. Each box contained a frozen turkey , potatoes and gravy, stuffing, vegetables, cranberry sauce and all the trimmings, including a pumpkin pie.
They served more families this year because unfortunately, there was more of a need. They served from 4 to 12 people in a household. That is a lot of food. In addition to the Thanksgiving meal, also included in the food box this year was cereal, shelf stable milk and peanut butter and jelly so the children will have breakfast and lunch for a week while they are out of school.
On Friday evening, Nov. 22nd, 75-100 people came together to prepare the meal boxes and 50-75 people arrived today to deliver the food. The Vista community has once again really come together. Vista Teen Outreach was over budget because they had only planned on serving 200 families. They didn’t want to say no to anyone, so they posted their need on Facebook and they received a lot of donations through their website. The community came together during the last minutes to help them with this cause.
A lot of people brought money to TJ Crossman’s Auto Repair, who is a Sponsor, and where everything was assembled at his business parking area. Kiwanis Club of Sunrise Vista contributed $400. Local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts showed up to help along with the North County Young Marines, and students from Rancho Buena Vista and Vista High School. Other donations were from Nsdar, Sunrise Kiwanis, Amigos de Vista Lions, Melba Bishop Pickleball, Smart N Final, Food 4 Less, North County Food Policy Council, Frazier Farms, San Diego Food Bank and lots of community members.
The volunteers all had T-Shirts to wear so they were identifiable to the dinner recipients when they came to their doors.
They gave the applications to each of the schools that Vista Teen Outreach has pantries at, and they sought out the families in need. The families had to fill out an application and the schools sent them back to Vista Teen Outreach. In advance, the volunteers called all of the homes to confirm the deliveries, as some people had moved since the application was turned in. So they needed to confirm if they were picking up their box or it would be delivered.
TJ Crossman said, “It’s nice that we have humanity here and people to help out, I believe all people are genuinely good. This is Vista!”
For more information please email to vistateenoutreach@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
