In the midsts of holiday planning, meal prepping, and gift wrapping, we sometimes forget about the gift of giving. Holidays look different for every person and some may not have means necessary to make ends meet. Coming togehter as a community members is one of the most powerful things we can do to help others during this time and throughout the whole year. Utah Families Feeding Families is here to help us learn what we can to do both give and receive help.
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Jen: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast with Hillary and Jen.
Nicole: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast. We're so excited to be here today with Jaymee and Keisha from Families Feeding families. Can't wait to hear all about your organization and how it operates so welcome you guys.
Keisha: Thank you.
Jen: How about the two of you just introduce yourself and let us know a little bit about. You and why you do what you do.
Jaymee: So, I'm Jaymee Avery and yes, I can just go back and from the beginning of how it kind of started if that’s what you'd like. So, this started for me, it's been like an evolution process that happened. But when my children were little, we were living in Chicago and we were adopting one of my daughters and we were at the daily Center in downtown Chicago and at the Daily Center. They have this big, huge outdoor eating area and all the business people come out and come outside and have all their lunch out there. And there was a kind of business people eating lunch out there and then a bell ring and everyone left and after everyone left, all these homeless people came out and were digging in the trash cans and looking for leftover food and my children just we're beside themselves. Mommy, tell them to stop getting food out of the garbage. And it was just super emotional. And my oldest son was going through my diaper bag and passing out fruit juice too, and stuff like that. And so, a few days later, it was close to Christmas. My kids came and told me that they didn't want Christmas that year. They wanted to make food for those people. And so, we had a family discussion and we decided instead of doing Christmas presents, we would go buy gift cards and we would go down to the Daily Center and pass them out. And that became our tradition. And like the next year, we went and we had, you know, gift cards and gloves because we noticed last year that they didn't have, you know, people needed gloves. And every year it just kind of evolved. And then we moved here to Utah and Cache Valley didn't seem to have, like, that big of an issue at the time. This was about 16 years ago. Can't say the same thing now, but about 16 years ago, you didn't see that type of an issue and so we had gone to Salt Lake and done it a few times. But Salt Lake had really strict things. You needed permits. You couldn't pass things out. So, I decided to just create a Facebook group called Families Feeding Families to see what needs were out here in the valley and that's actually how we met Keisha. Keisha had gone down to Salt Lake with us quite a bit and handed out food and so forth, and we started this group and it just kind of had, like, a mind of his own is. That what you want to say?
Keisha: Yeah, yeah.
Jaymee: Somebody, somebody would message and say, hey, you know, there's this person that needs this. Is there anything you could do? And we were able to network with other people and.
Keisha: They're kind of just created itself.
Jaymee: Created itself. I mean, that's really the truth as it really did it created itself. And we start there was such a need for people in the middle because there were programs for people who were low income. There were programs for people, you know, that had you know different financial issues, but there was really not a lot for people who fell right under those guidelines and that they could go paycheck to paycheck. And if they missed 3 days of work because they had a sick kid. On paper they look fine. But they're really and that's where we started seeing that there was the biggest need and it just kind of took over and here we are now.
Jen: It's always been my biggest frustration. It's like, oh, you earn five cents, more, you don’t get this help And like, really five cents is supposed to help me with all the other things
Keisha: And that's the case with a lot of found. I would say at least 90% of the people we deal with, that’s the case
Nicole: It's really just a few dollars too much.
Jaymee: Ohh every time and even if they people who don't make too much, sometimes you they have an emergency. I mean I always say it, this is the one we see all the time. Peoples tires. I had to buy new tires and now I can't pay my rent. But if you don't have tires you can't get to work. You can't do this and it just this big huge snowball effect and they you know those type of things when you're living paycheck to paycheck, any type of disruption can make huge issues. So, I guess that's how we got started, yeah.
Jen: Yeah, yeah. So have you lived here your entire life or did you come from somewhere else?
Keisha: Yeah. So, I have. I was born and raised in Logan. So, I just like Jamie said, I'm just met her to the Facebook page. Well, my aunt did. My aunt introduced me and she's like, hey, we're going to go do this distribution in Salt Lake, do you want to come? And it just it touched me and I worked at Smiths at the time. So, I had some resources to, you know, get bread donated because we would make sack lunches and stuff like that. And that's how I kind of. I didn't push myself in, but that's how I got in
Jaymee: No, I drug her in. Let's be honest. I'm like, I want you
Keisha: I can get, I can get lunch meat, I can get waters. You know all these things and so. Then it be you know then we weren't able to do that anymore. And I just I just stuck around. And you know, I've met so many, I've gained friends. I mean, I don't want to say I'm famous in the valley, but it's nice to go. There for me like are you Keisha Pink? I'm like, I am. And you know, but they but they take the time and they're like, thank you so much. But then always my response has been I couldn't do what I do without you. So, and it's true. Like. Sure. My name is, Jaymee’s name. And all the other admins names are out there, but it's not just us doing it. We can't do be the frontline if we don't have. The support of the community so.
Jaymee: It’s because I have a big mouth.
Nicole: So, tell us more about your organization. How does it operate? Where are you guys?
Jaymee: OK, you want me to answer. That so how do we operate again, I think this is one of the things that makes us unique is as we talked about, you know, there's people who don't meet those guidelines. We are beyond flexible. We don't have like cut and dry guidelines because our whole goal is to keep people from becoming homeless. To keep people from, you know, needing other services that we look at every single situation individually. And we try, you know, because. No two situations are the same and we look at everybody individually. And we help with just odd things. Things that there are programs for. I mean, so our I guess our main thing is we help with rental assistance, that's a big thing, utilities and food.
Keisha: There's families that don't like we said before, make too much for food stamps or even the even the food pantry, you know? And so, we have porch pantries.
Nicole: Right.
Jen: Right.
Keisha: To provide food. But yeah, like you're saying rent, utilities through.
Jaymee: And sometimes people have weird hours and they work nights or something and they can't get to get there. They don't even really need anything. But you know, maybe a gallon of milk or this just to get them to Friday. You know that type of thing. So, we do that. I just got done doing all of our end of the year report things and, I was laughing at some of the things that we've paid for, like we had a gentleman who, he worked, he was homeless, but he had a job and he worked out of his car and the charger broke that charges his computer. And he was working so hard to save this money. So, he could get an apartment. Yeah, and without this, I think. It was like what? $150.00 something that he needed for his for his computer. So, we bought him a charger, you know, so things like that that you don't. Yeah. Right. There's not a program to buy chargers for you know. And so, you know, we help things with things like that and you know, obviously we do our Christmas program. We do a back to school program every year where kids can get an outfit, a pair of shoes. And then we do Mamos restaurant lets us host it there and we do a Big Breakfast. So, when they come and pick up all their things, they get to have breakfast and then Oh my goodness, this year over 372 haircuts. I think wasn't. We did 372 free haircuts, so we set up in the parking lot. And kids can come in and get their haircuts. And it was kind of fun this year because one of the stylists said. I want to focus on the moms. Back to school as hard for moms and even maybe dads or single dads. And so, she did Moms and Dads, haircuts. And so that was really kind of neat. And so we did that. And then we had during the summer, the school lunch program, there was a couple weeks where it stopped. Or days that the school was closed and we put a thing out where people could sign up and we made tons of sack lunches.
Nicole: Ohh wow.
Jaymee: And they could come and it wasn't just sack lunches. They did spaghetti and.
Keisha: They like bagged up meals. I guess you could say for, you know, cause it's harder in the summer to feed your kids. Yeah. You're expecting this?
Jaymee: Yeah, yeah school. And so, they did that. And they were like, they just popped them in the microwave and they were ready to go. So, it kind of filled that need in between when parents were starting on that and so, and where are we located? And we are located out of each of our homes.
Keisha: We have our phones.
Jaymee: And we have wonderful husbands that support us. We used to do Christmas inside of our homes. But we got way too big, so we did them all the last few years and now that the mall is closing this year, we're going to be in a we had a doctor in the community that's moving to another office. So, he's loaning us his office for a few months, so it's going to be smaller but we’ll make it work
Nicole: That's awesome.
Jaymee: So, we're just located where wherever our phones go, there just where we are tSpeaker 4
Keisha: Yeah, yeah it is all done through Facebook. And our website is, like under construction, it's almost done. It's going to be. It's it really should be really great, but. Yeah, like we, we have our e-mail addresses that we have our phone numbers. So, most people contact the other administrators through Facebook, but me and Jaymee are getting calls and text messages all the time. But so yeah, like literally through our phones is how this is run.
Jaymee: But we are excited because like as Keisha mentioned our website is under construction and we will have a better way of reaching us which will be great because before you know, as I said, we started out as a Facebook group and then we became a nonprofit. And now that we've grown so much. We have to start having a little bit more organization and so we have, we will have an official submission form. So now instead of like trying to reach me or trying to reach one of the other people through e-mail or Facebook, you can actually go on our website and there will be a form that you can submit and it will go directly to every single one of the board members e-mail addresses, so that that's definitely going to help. But because we don't have any grants or we don't have any funding that comes in, we're entirely community funded. That's a lot of money and we were really fortunate that we had two people volunteer and say, hey, we're going to put this together for you. We're going to do this website for you and get it up and going
Keisha: And these people that are doing it. They've given back in the group before. They volunteered and they've even received help. And so, like for them to just say we're going to do this for free is awesome. They're just donating their skills to make us a website. And like I don't, we've told them a million times. How grateful we are. I don't think they really understand how grateful we really are. Because that's how we it's going to be a new way to run our Christmas program. Because Jaymee used to do it out of a notebook. She used to write it all down. And assign sponsors and this will just be an easier way cause the computer just does it all.
Jaymee: Yeah, they made such fun of me because. They're like Jaymee, you can do this on a computer and I would handwrite everything. And I had these binders and they were I carried around all these big binders. And we started doing it on the computer a couple of years ago and last year. It was definitely better, but I still had my binders. I printed everything out and put them in. The binders, yes. Yeah. So off topic again, sorry.
Nicole: Old habits, right? So, you guys have porch pantries you mentioned.
Jaymee: We do, we have. So, we have one at my house, which is located in North Logan.
Nicole: I've been to it! It’s a beautiful house.
Jaymee: Yes, yes, I like and then we have one in Hyrum at the Baptist Church and then the Lutheran Church.
Keisha: I think it's, the Prince of Peace
Jaymee: Peace Prince of Peace Church. So, we don't actually run that one
Keisha: We just kind of advertise it/
Jaymee: They we they do it. Did they ask us if we could put it on our page so that they could get more people aware that it's out there and then we have a blessing box also in North Logan and almost all except for the blessing box. They have freezers and refrigerators and sometimes they're packed full and you can come and get everything you need. And then we have days where there isn't anything. Sadly, in the last I'm going to say especially the last five months, we have seen more people than we've ever seen and we have technology is just amazing to me. But my son set up all of our cameras so that it does like facial recognition and then at the end of the day it will tell me if there's more than like the same person was there like my kids. It will tell me they've been out there 20 times, you know. But the interesting thing is we we're not seeing the same people anymore. You know, it's always. It's like new families and kids and just the need has gotten from. It's literally just grown like you wouldn't believe. And families that normally used to bring things we're seeing bringing something, but also taking stuff when they leave too. Yeah, the need has gotten just insane lately, yeah.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. With inflation And, you know, wages not keeping up, I'm sure.
Jaymee: Yeah, it's just I just can't get over the difference. And we have a couple people that monitor the cameras. I mean, obviously there's always going to be the one person that abuses it. You know, we're very fortunate that we don't see that very often. We've seen it a couple times, but. It's amazing. And so we watched the cameras primarily for abuse. But what's been interesting to see is just the amount of people and that it's new people. It's not the same people coming, it's all new. And that's been hard.
Jen: So, the porch pantries are like on the honor system then.
Jaymee: It's completely on the honor system, yeah.
Jen: I think that takes away a lot of shame that people may feel of asking and reaching for reach. I just think that’s awesome
Jaymee: Yeah I just talked about that the other day that so I have been my office faces my porch. And so when I'm working in my office, I can see out the porch and the last three weeks, I had have been living in my office and so I had an opportunity to just watch kind of personally what was going on. And it was interesting to me to see how many people walk in with their head down and not looking and just kind of grab what they need and walk out. And you can almost feel their shame and their embarrassment. And it breaks my heart. I just want to go it's OK. To take what you need, we want you to be fed and it breaks my heart that people have to feel sorry. I'm going to get emotional that they have to feel ashamed because they need to eat.
Nicole: I know I'm getting emotional too.
Jaymee: And I think that for me. It’s one of the hardest things is everybody deserves to eat. I don't care what you've done in your life, I don't care who you are. Everyone deserves to eat. And so, I think that's the porch pantries are probably my passion out of everything that is and it's what we spend the most money on our budget. It's we spend the most money on the porch pantries.
Nicole: Yeah, it was really. It was really cool going there to donate. I didn't know what to expect and then, just like it was so easy, you.
Jaymee: Yeah, You just put it there, and then take what you need and we now have a neat little board up that people can write thank you notes on or different things like that oh, you need an endorphin lift read some of those notes. Let me tell you, I'm having a bad day. Let me see if there's not out there. It just makes me feel good!
Nicole: Yeah, this is an amazing thing that. You guys have created.
Jaymee: It's fun, it is fun. It it's, it's really fun. I think we love doing it.
Keisha: We've involve our kids too. That's what I like is. It's so funny because, like, people would drop something off my house for. You know like because I need to give it to somebody or. Whatever my kids like is that for Families FeedingFamilies. Or we'll be going somewhere. Are we going to do something, Families being families, like with Christmas last year. I'll be like, hey, let's go. We gotta go and like are we going to the mall. Yeah, you know. Like they just know, but they. You know, I might get emotional too, but like my kids know. When someone is needing help like, you know we've driven to Salt Lake and they say like Mom, can we get these people some food so like they know so it's been a blessing. Me in my life and a learning experience for my kids that I'm able to teach my kids not to judge and to give back.
Jen: What awesome lesson that will serve them for their entire lives. The gift of giving is, it's pretty amazing.
Jaymee: Because you can tell your children. And but you can't. They have to experience it. They have to learn. I remember when my youngest son at Christmas time, when we did it in my home, the gifts would come and he would see him. And he would be like, oh, I know. You want that? And explaining to him and to see the evolution of him no longer desiring those things but mom, what kids going to be so excited to get this and to see the transformation from, I want to his joy of knowing that another child would receive joy and you cannot. There's no way to give that to your children. Unless they experience it
Jen: years ago, one of my favorite things was right after Christmas, and the parents that would bring in their kids that have cleaned out their bedrooms and taken the toys that they don't play with anymore and then they would bring them to the Family Place for the Kids Place and it just. It just touches your heart so much. Kids going, I want some other kids to be able to play with these. I can't play with them anymore. And so. We don't get that much now that we're making sure that we're using all of our resources within the valley and we're all moving towards the same goal of helping families, but yeah, I just loved that.
Nicole: Yeah, it's definitely something that we have tried to incorporate within our family and we always do some kind of giving tree or some kind of something. So that my kids know like and so they can be excited. Like you were saying like, oh, I want to pick this out for this little girl that I'm shopping for and. Oh no, I'm going to get emotional as well. Oh man, I feel it coming but you know. Even coats like winter coats and stuff like that. You know, my kids would come home from school and so and so doesn't have a coat. Can we go to the store and buy a coat for my friend? So that's something that we've been able to do and like donate to our local schools so that kids can have coats and you know, just things that you don't think about.
Keisha: And I think it brings your family closer together. Like I've involved my husband, but he didn't really have a choice but.
Jaymee: Mine doesn't either.
Keisha: But really, like my husband's amazing like today we're going to pick up a whole bunch of food that Vivint put together for us, and he has to work today. But I told him I'm like, I need you at Vivint at 3:00 and he's like, for what? I'm like, we're picking up food and he's like, OK, he just knows that it's a passion of mine, so he's made it a passion of his and the support he has. So it's brought our family closer together in that way.
Jaymee: I agree.
Keisha: We all enjoy the giving and we don't need recognition for it. It's just it's just a good feeling that I've you know can experience with my kids
Jaymee: Yeah, I agree, cause my kids are completely involved and they love my husband, too. My husband might not roll his eyes every now and then or huffs at me. But he's.
Keisha: Or he’ll call Keisha and say, have you see my wife? Oh, she's here.
Jaymee: We had an unfortunate situation that our accountant passed away. And he got pancreatic cancer and the disease progressed very quickly. And so we learned that. Unfortunately, he hadn't got all of our paperwork done. And so, the last couple weeks I had been, you know, matching receipts to things and getting this all done. And I had it from one end of my house. The next, and I loved it because I watched my husband and my kids. To around all of my piles and they just knew. That's OK. That's what Mom's doing, and we're going to we're going to put up with it. There wasn't, how come we're not? We're not making dinner. It was we need to have cereal or something because Mom's busy. And so, I appreciate that. And I love that we have that support. I think that was one of your questions you said to us and when I was telling my husband about it, he goes, you're going to mention my eyerolls aren't you. I said, yeah, I will definitely. Because he's very supportive. But he's also got the eye rolled down.
Nicole: Of course! You are married after all. That happens.
Jaymee: I was looking at your questions and this was one of the ones that I did actually really want to answer. And where did it go? OK, so what are the two best tips or advice our listeners can take away from this? And I was thinking about that and that was a really important question that I want to answer. When you do something like this, no matter how much you put your heart into it, no matter what you're doing and how help and you know good you feel like you're doing. You're always going to have people that are going to criticize you. You're always going to have people that are going to talk bad about you. People that tell you are doing it wrong or just be ugly. I mean. It's always going to happen and I think one of the things that I have learned along the way is you cannot listen to the haters. You cannot not let what other people say negatively affect you, and you have to always keep your eye on giving and being kind and compassionate and never let the negativity stop you from doing. Because the more you do, the more criticism you're going to get and you're never going to do it right for some people. And so, I think that is, if somebody is thinking, oh, I want to, I want to serve in the community, I want to do this and you kind of do. Develop a tough skin and I don't have a tough skin and I take everything personally and it's been one of the biggest lessons I've learned is, you know, don't give up. And I think the second thing that I would want people to know is that it's judgment and boundaries are two different things. And it's OK to have boundaries of how much you're going to help and how much you can give. And you can do that without being judgmental or without being unkind. And you can set boundaries. But with judgment. Every single one of us could be in that same situation. And if you're looking at somebody and saying, I don't know why they're getting help because I happen to know that they have a really nice car or I happen to know this. We never, ever know what the story is, and we never truly know what somebody's going through. And so, I think my second tip would be to not judge and to learn and find out the whole situation. I'm going to share a story I have to be a little careful because of privacy issues with the how I share this but. So, we had been approached by a family and this is a hard one. The dad had a great job. Mom had been working and this was during COVID, and their daughter had leukemia and they were driving back and forth to primary children's. And because the Ronald McDonald House wasn't open and because of COVID and everything else. They were having to pay for hotels and so they were paying for a babysitter down here in Logan to stay with all their kids. Dad was taking time off. They were going back and forth and they were out of money. Just completely out of money. And their kids were already feeling neglected because mom and dad are spending all this time with, you know, their daughter who was sick and so we sponsored their family at Christmas time and somehow somebody found out that we were doing it and they wrote horrible hateful things and they said he has a great job he's got money, blah blah blah. You just, because they didn't know the whole story. The next year they found out that it wasn't actually a leukemia, it was a some type of a genetic blood disease and all of their children have it. And they've lost three of their children in the last few months. And I look at that family and how horrible if we wouldn't have helped them because one on paper they look like they're fine. And if we would have judged on the outside, so that is probably my most passionate thing is you don't always know somebody's story. You don't. And then so if you don't know. Don't say, you know, be kind and know the story before you react. So those are my 2 words of advice.
Nicole: I love that it makes me think of I think Brene Brown said, it's hard to hate up close and if you're ever experiencing, you know, like judging people lean in and get curious. Because there's so much more.
Jaymee: Yeah, And none of us know what's going to happen in our lives and so many people are one paycheck away from homelessness. I mean, statistically, I don't know the statistics off the top of my head, but we have seen people that sponsored families at Christmas that were helping kids. And the next year, they were one of the families that needed help. You know, so we're always none of our situations are always secure and you never know. So, if you have that rule to be compassionate and kind with boundaries, then you usually work out OK.
Jen: I think we are a society where we always put on a good face. You always see the facade. But you never see behind, I mean social media is that way. You never see the bad stuff it's, let me create this space in my house that is beautiful and anything else while there's chaos on the inside. Just so everybody thinks that I’ve got it all put together.
Nicole: So, you've seen my social media. Do not cry, smile through the tears.
Jaymee: When I was a kid. The living room was always the one room we weren't allowed to go in and make a mess. And my I remember. I can't thinking why can't we play in there. My mom would say well, because if somebody comes and I open the door. You know, and it was just even as a child, you kind of we're basically ingrained that the first thing that people see always needs to be the good. And that's just not always the case. And so, judgment, I think. And it took a while for me to learn the difference between judgment and boundaries, and that's been a very good lesson for me because I bring everybody into my house, you know? And so I've learned boundaries. Keisha has been really good about teaching me about them
Keisha: This. Yeah, it's hard, especially when the same people ask for help over and over. We can't help everybody the same. And it's not that we don't want to help you, but it's because. There are more people out there that need the help that haven't been helped, you know. Even so we have to say no to some people and it is not easy to. Nobody know, even if they have been helped, it's. You know, we'll look right. Oh my gosh. And help this person this time many times for this and. You know, we try. I'm guilty of it, but it's hard. Not to think. You know, they're just, they're not trying or whatever, but sometimes that's not the case, you know. But in the end, we can't help everybody.
Jaymee: I think one of the things too that makes us a little bit different is that we ask people what they can do for somebody else before we help them. And we've had a lot of people offended by that, but we do say, what are your skills and or what do you have? And for example, just a couple weeks ago, there was a lady that needed her brakes put on her car and she didn't have the money to get it done. And then we had a guy, a single dad. Who actually this was great. He wanted to learn how to French braid and he wanted to learn how to do his kids hair. And so, he did her breaks and she taught him how to braid. And so sometimes we're able to just because of our community networking, we're able to match people up with services. We have a lot of people that will say, I can't make my rent, but I don't want you to give me money. And So, what can I do to earn it? And we see that all the time.
Nicole: Oh my gosh, I love that.
Keisha: I'll ask what can I do to earn it.
Jaymee: And so, we'll hook people up, or if we know of somebody that needs a service, we'll go send them over and have them help that person. And then the charity will pay their rent. But then the person that we would have had to pay for to do something is getting the service.
Keisha: like people will say you know when. I someone asked for rent whatever and like. I can help. You they say I can pay back whenever I can or what? Can I do? To, you know, pay back. And I always just say just pay for it.
Jaymee: Yeah. And we they some people learn not to say that because we call them. Out on it we need, like today I today Vivint, they're donating a lot of food and I put a post out today and I said if you're utilizing the porch pantry, we need you be there. Come help.
Keisha: And I actually do I was so worried it was just going to be me and my husband. And we'll take a look, but I already. Have like, more than a dozen people coming to help. So, and that was just with one Facebook post.
Nicole: Well I think that just goes to show how much you guys helped the community, the people like want to come give back and want to help.
Jaymee: It makes this last was it last week that we couldn't get that guy’s house, or the week before? Anyway, I can't even remember the name of the. It's the old Econo Lodge that's now the bell. Their manager there cares about the people that live there, and she reached out to us and there was a man who had a disability and his apartment had just got basically an inhabitable and she said, is there any chance you guys could help us? So that he doesn't lose his housing. So, we were able to go in there and get it completely cleaned and we had a bunch of volunteers show up. And the interesting thing was is, you know, I don't know everybody by name, but I'm introducing myself and I start talking to the volunteers that are there. And over half of them were people that we'd either helped them in the past or they were people that say I utilized the porch pantry, and when I saw your post, I don't have any money, but I can scrub a wall. And so, we had people that were there that had been, you know, being serviced that way. And at Christmas time, one of the things that we see so much that people get so excited about is they're like, you guys helped my family two years ago and now I get to sponsor a kid. And so, we see a whole lot of the people that we helped before that are helping now, yeah.
Keisha: That's what it was like to see is with help giving back.
Jen: What a great gift you're giving them though. Teaching them how to #1 ask for help. It's OK, but then also teaching them how to do it themselves, right? It's not here. Let me enable you and just provide everything for you. It's here, this is how you can get back. This is how you can you know better yourself. Things like that. And I think that is a huge gift to them as well.
Jaymee: It is, and I think our I'm probably going to say this word wrong. Reciprocity is that the right word, our recidivism rate is, I think, very low because of that. And I've seen in the past, if we continue to keep helping, sometimes the same person, they don't often try to help themselves. But when we give them an opportunity to serve somebody else and do it. We don't have those same people coming back asking for, I mean obviously there are situations that you know ar beyond people's control, but we don't see chronic requests of needing help when we get people involved in helping others or themselves, and it's made it just makes a big difference. So, we may not have a lot of rules. We may not have a lot of regulations and some people see us as you know, not regimented or so forth. But you have to be when you're trying to fill in the needs that there's not programs to fill
Nicole: Right, right. Yeah, that makes total sense
Jaymee: It just does. And so we just.
Nicole: Yeah, because there are definitely holes, yeah.
Jaymee: Exactly. You know, as a matter of fact, I got a message today from one of your workers and saying, can we count on you again this year to help some of our families that don't have correct documentation? And we're absolutely, of course. And you just do, you have to be able to help, and that's what's neat. We had another nonprofit reach out to us and they said we have a family that their daughter needs glasses and it's a really weird prescription and they don't fit this category and they don't fit that program and they don't fit this and we can't get them down to Shriners. Absolutely. We'll pay for the glasses and so.
Keisha: We have actually done it a couple of times.
Jaymee: Yay, quite a few times now. I know when I was doing our report. I'm like, yeah. We've got a lot of glasses and so it's just it's neat to be able to feel those awkward needs and unusual needs, I guess is the word and because we do that that we have.
Nicole: Well, and those are cycle breaking needs like you. Were talking about the man experiencing homelessness in his working in his car like there is no program for that, there is nowhere for that but. He's trying to break the cycle and that's the way to do it
Jaymee: And he's in an apartment and doing fantastic now.
Nicole: That's awesome.
Jaymee: Yes. And so, and things. And we have people too, that live in cars and live in their vehicles and we'll get a message. We don't do car payments. I mean, that's just not something we usually do, but that's their home. And if they lose that car now, they go from not having any place. And so, you know, we've made exceptions and we'll help with things like that and so.
Nicole: What are some ways that the community can get involved to help you guys? It sounds like so you are obviously a nonprofit, we understand that nonprofit here.
Jaymee: And we're learning.
Nicole: It which means that we're just living on a hope and a prayer most of time
Jaymee: Exactly. Is that not the truth
Nicole: Yeah, but how? Like how do we get involved? How can the community help you guys.
Jaymee: So, one, the porch pantries donating, I always tell everybody when you go to the grocery store, you don't. Nobody's asking you to spend $150.00. Grab an extra gallon of milk, drop it off at one of the countries. Just make it. We have this one lady. I love her. She every week, she goes to the grocery store, and she just buys two extra items. And that's just her routine. And she drops him off at the porch pantry. So, you know, that's an amazing way. You know, if you want to get your children involved, have your kids do a canned food drive, you know, just say or this is something that we get asked for toilet paper. You would not believe how many people. But it's not an item that people donate in laundry soap. OK? And so, when anybody says to me, and I say do a laundry soap drive or hygiene drive. I'm drawing a total blank. What's the wonderful nonprofit that always does the hygiene kits?
Keisha: Oh, the Cache Humanitarian center.
Jaymee: Cache Humanitarian Center. Yes, they do those for us and it is the one item that we get the most people are like soap! Thank you so much because they do these little kits and they're like I got new deodorant and those are items people don't spend money on when you're hungry, you don't buy deodorant. You don't buy laundry soap. You know, you don't buy the toilet paper. And so those are things we don't see a lot of. And those are wonderful ducks just dropped.
Nicole: Can those just be dropped off? There's.
Jaymee: Yeah just dropped off
Keisha: There's no people who ask me, hey, have this to drop off. Is there a time I can go? And I'm like, go just. I have people asking to schedule a time but just go like you don't have to have a set time.
Jaymee: No, just show up. I literally have people at my house at 2:00 in the morning dropping things off or getting food. We just we don't have any rules and we understand that people schedule are crazy. Yeah. Come when you can. We're totally OK with it. And so, in the food area, that's absolutely how people can get involved at Christmas time. Obviously, we do a back to, you know, we do a Christmas program, sponsor a child, and you can come. And this is one thing. That too we. I really love is we wrap all the kids gifts at Christmas. And the reason we do that is because we want to give everybody an opportunity to serve and maybe you don't you cannot afford to do a child at Christmas, but you can bring your family and you can come sit down and you can wrap gifts and it gives everybody an opportunity to be involved. Or we always. Say you know, if you can't afford to sponsor a child, can you get a roll of wrapping paper? And donate A roll of wrapping paper.
Keisha: And when we post all this on the page, we'll say, hey, we need that wrapping paper, we need tape, we need scissors, we need, we need wrappers and need people show up and so. You know when, when, when. You're asking, how can people get involved, watch the Facebook page. There's so many opportunities. And throughout the day that you can give back and it involves.
Jen: I'm amazed when you guys ask for things and I look at how many comments there are. I'm like this valley is amazing, yeah.
Jaymee: This valley is. But did you know we've never had a need go unmet? Never, never, ever. We literally every single time we have requested and put a post out there that we have a need. This Community comes together. Cache Valley is amazing in what they do, but we have never, ever had to say, you know what we tried but we couldn't it. It's they always do it and everybody can do their best. Like when we're doing many things to we'll say, you know, we need this much. If everybody can send $1.00. We can do it.
Keisha: That's just favorite. When we do the Dollar challenge because people. Some people even said like $0.20.
Jaymee: This is all I have, but you know what?
Keisha: But it adds up if everybody. Would just donate $1.00 we can meet so many needs.
Nicole: You guys have a Venmo like how do?
Jaymee: Yeah. So we do it through Venmo and it's wonderful until you're having to do all the books. And you have. Yeah. And you had a month where you had. Like you know, $7001.00 transactions. But it's one I'm not complaining. It's great, but that's and it gives. I think it's important that everybody feels like they have an opportunity to serve. You can't feel good when you're, like, looking at everybody else and going well. I don't have the money. I don't have this, but everybody can take an hour or two out of their day to come wrap a few presents or, you know to come serve breakfast when we go back to school. It doesn't have to always be financial. And even if it is financial, like I said, you can pick up a roll of wrapping paper and to some people going and grabbing that, that's a big deal for them. And so, Keisha and I, always in the whole board, but we always really stress and this is going back to the people. How important it is to let everybody be involved and I will hear people say it would take so much time if you would just put everything in a box. You know, you don't have to wrap every gift. You don't have to. Yeah, we do.
Keisha: Because what if that family can't even afford wrapping paper/
Nicole
And it can make them feel special too right?
Jaymee: It does, and I was a foster mom and I can't tell you how many of my foster kids, which is one of the reasons I think Little Lambs is awesome because they do those bags. I had kids that came with garbage bags, and I hated that. And I'm not giving Christmas to kids in a dirty in a box.
Keisha: Yeah, we like we wrapped the boxes. So not only are we wrapping those gifts but we are also wrapping the boxes that is comes in. Everything is wrapped.
Jaymee: Through another thing other people can serve, I'll say come, you know, pick up a bunch of boxes and we have a million people that do it. They come and pick up the boxes, take wrapping supplies home. Their family wraps all the big boxes. They bring them back to us and they're done so people can serve in that capacity. Always, obviously, financially is a wonderful way to serve, but we love it too. When people say, you know, I want to get my youth group involved. So I want to get this involved and we'll say, OK, do a sock drive, you know, different type of things and.
Keisha: Yeah, like we had a ward in Providence reached out to me about the school and they did it back to school drive and loaded all in my living room. I love when youth groups get involved and they like it like it's yeah.
Nicole: Well, this is perfect. My daughter goes to Mount Logan and she's been she's on Student Counsel and they want something so.
Jaymee: So too, if you have like an item. Like you know, we had one group. This girl, she said. I know this is weird, but when my family was going through a hard time, we couldn't get new toothbrushes and new toothpaste. It was just something. And you don't think about that. So, she did a toothbrush and toothpaste. I put our last box of toothpaste out on the porch pantry, the other day it lasted for a year we had enough toothpaste that lasted for a year. Because she did a toothbrush on the toothpaste drive. And so, it doesn't always have to be. It can be anything you. I mean, and that's what's fun is that it doesn't have to have a lot of rules. You can get creative and do different things. We have people that like to crochet and so they knit hats and every single kid last year, at Christmas time got a hat. because we had so many. And then this is my favorite. I like so at Christmas time we give all of our teenagers fast food gift cards. Can I tell you the story really quick. So one of the first years we were doing Christmas we got a letter from this teenage boy and he wrote out exactly how much each item at McDonald's cost. Like the hamburger. You're going to cry. Again, I see. How much the hamburger cost, how much the French fries cost, how much everything cost, and he wanted to know if he could get. I don't remember the amount. I think it was like $8.30 or something like that. He wanted to know if it would be OK if he could get a gift card for that amount of money so he could leave campus and go out to lunch with all of his friends up at Skyview. And oh my goodness, I was like this kid is just asking for one little gift card so he can go off campus. So that became a tradition. So, all of our teenagers get gift cards at Christmas time so they can go out to lunch with their friends. And I like to put them in Christmas cards. So, we ask everybody, to get their kids involved and make homemade Christmas cards. So that's another thing they do. So, we take the Christmas cards, we take the gift card in it, and then we put it in that child's bag and so everybody's kids can color, you know, so make Christmas cards. And last year I was very sad because at the end we ran out of Christmas cards and I had to use store bought ones for like 20 of our families. And I was bummed. So this year we're starting out with 0 Christmas cards.
Nicole: So get my kids coloring!
Keisha: It's so cute to have little kids do it.
Jen: And I'm sure you can contact like Krista our Kids Place Director. And say, can the kids that come to the Kids Place, can that be their art project to do that so.
Jayme: Oh, we would love that because we go through, you know, 500 or plus and then the parents also get a grocery gift card. That's another thing we give at Christmas card. So, I put the grocery gift card inside of that. And so, you know, depending on how many kids we have, you could be using 10 cards in one family. And so that hand drawn things are really important and it's so fun to read the things the kids write on them. Oh my God. And the way they color them and stuff. And it's just fun. It's just it's one of those new things.
Nicole: Well, now you guys are going to overflow.
Jaymee: Good I will not complain. Lucas Martin, who? You know the director at BRAG. His kids always color for us every year and I love it when he brings me this handful of cards, so just.
Nicole: It's such a good way that kids can serve, yeah.
Jaymee: Yeah, exactly. So, it gives everybody an opportunity. Like I said to serve and to be involved. So, and then during the summer we have our summer lunch program. You know, you can come, put lunches together and there's just a lot of varieties, or you can also let us know when you see a need, and there's times when people we get messages like we had a lady message who manages a storage unit. And she said there's a man living in the storage unit, you know, can you help? Because we are not going to know all the needs out. So maybe that's how you can serve is by helping somebody else telling us about a situation and so.
Nicole: You guys have given us so many amazing ideas. It's overwhelming. Like, I know a lot of people want to serve, but it's like overwhelming to think like, what do I do? And then I don't know. Sometimes I get in this mentality, like it has to be this grandiose thing, but it's literally coloring Christmas cards or like sending a dollar, you know, like it can be very simple.
Jaymee: And I think that's why it's successful is because it gives everybody an opportunity and you don't have to have a lot of money. You don't have to have a lot of time and they accumulated, you know, what's that expression? Our grandparents always say many hands make light work. It's just the truth. It is, is such the truth. When we were cleaning that gentlemen's house. You know, a couple weeks ago because so many people showed up, it would have been a four-day project. I mean, that's what I do for a living and I know. So, we got it done in like 7 or 8 hours because there were so many people that just showed up and everybody stayed an hour or two and you get it done. And so, I think it and it makes people feel good about themselves when they have an opportunity to give back. And we all know when we feel good about ourselves we do better in in life, and if you feel like you're a worthless person, I can't help anybody. I always need help and I think those of us who, when we're in a situation where we need help. We feel horrible about ourselves anyway. And so, giving somebody a way to help makes you feel better about yourself. And so, it just kind of. It's that circle. I always just say, you know, it's the circle. It's what makes things go. And Karma, what goes around comes around always in such a positive way. I'm talking too much, and I keep saying we and I want to be really clear on. The fact that it's.
Keisha: Keisha is sitting here to next to Jaymee. But there are more of us!
Jaymee: Well, and that there's so many people behind us, It is not just Keisha and I we have a there's a million, you know, we've got a board of you know eight other people that. We're just loud and they're quiet. They work behind the scenes, and so we're the mouthpieces. But there is it takes so many of us to make it work. And like I said, the community we could not do it. Cache Valley there's no better place to live than Cache Valley. The people out here are incredible. Absolutely incredible. I say it all the time because. I can't believe what people do. It's just amazing.
Jen: Yes I agree 100%. Thank you guys so much for coming and giving us. So many ideas on simple ways. Of how to give especially during this this holiday season that we're coming up on, people are always looking for ways to give and no matter where they live because people from all over the country listen to the podcast you. Do those simple things that you guys were talking about. And I think I'm like, wow, Can you imagine if every community created a Families Feeding Families and how help that would be
Jaymee: Yeah, in your own communities. Exactly.
Jen: So, listeners, if you're wanting. To start it up, go for it.
Jaymee: Because you can and it can be as little or as big as you want it to. That's the thing, and it makes a difference that there's it's never. Service is never too small, you know. And I always say to people too, because they'll say I'm so sorry. I could only give, you know, like we've had people who donate $0.23 on Venmo. Don't ever be sorry, you know, because that. That's wonderful saving.
Keisha: That’s $0.23 you could have saved and used for something else but you are giving it.
Jaymee: Yes! It's still every little bit matters.
Jen: Thank you so much. I hope that you all enjoyed this and remember to be kind and patient with yourselves and we will see you back here next week.
Thank you for listening to the Parents Place podcast. If you would like to reach us, you can at parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org or you can reach Jen on Facebook. Jen Daly – The Family Place. Please check out our show notes for any additional information. Our website is thefamilyplaceutah.org. If you're interested in any of our upcoming virtual classes, we'd love to see you there!
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