Vista Teen Outreach, founded by Debbie Medrano and others was started in 2011. This is the fifth year that many volunteers rallied together to feed over 285 families with a complete Thanksgiving dinner. On Friday evening, November 20th, over twenty five volunteers came together to form a food line to prepare a Thanksgiving meal box for the families that went through an application process to receive the food.
Thankfully, there was so many donations throughout the year that they did not need to raise extra funds to purchase the food, which was a first for the organization. Due to COVID-19 the volunteer staff was cut by 1/3rd this year to meet social distancing through the process, so everyone worked together to help prepare the food bags to be picked up or delivered on Saturday morning.
The food pantry and the preparation and delivery of the Thanksgiving dinners all took place at TJ Crossmans Auto Repair, at 1148 N Melrose Dr., Vista, CA. to help feed Vista families that are less fortunate and would otherwise not have a Thanksgiving meal. On Saturday morning, November 21st, the volunteers gathered once again to deliver 80 meals to homes and 220 cars lined up to pick up their Thanksgiving meal.
“The volunteers were amazing and the North San Diego County Young Marines were instrumental in streamlining the car caravan to hand out the meals to the families as they drove through. They were all a blessing,” Medrano said.
