On Monday, July 25, Mosaic volunteers put up shelving for a new no-barriers youth food shelf at Brooklyn United Methodist Church. On Monday, August 2nd, twenty young adult volunteers from the Treehouse alumni group unloaded pallets and stocked the shelves, getting it "grocery store ready." Finally, we opened Wednesday night, August 3rd, with staff from Point Northwest (a YMCA outreach program to youth who are precariously housed), Streetworks (a youth outreach collaborative), CEAP (Community Emergency Assistance Program), and Mosaic all on hand for the opening. We were expecting a handful of kids--we had 16 people come through.

There were a few hiccups the first evening: the food shelf is designed for youth (i.e. 21 and under), but we had some adults come in to shop because they had kids--or had kids staying with them that were 21 and under--so we had to make some policies on the fly. In this case, we decided that in the future an adult can only get food if they have a teenager with them. We also had kids who needed more than food, but because we had staff on hand from the YMCA and Streetworks, we were able to connect them with more services. One young man was excited to see some hygiene products also there--he had been storing his contact lenses in water for a long time. We brought in a radio and some comfortable seating to make the space feel a bit less institutional, and other changes will come as necessary to make the young people feel welcome when they gather their needed groceries.

Moving forward, Mosaic and its community partners will ensure that the food shelf remains stocked by gathering on Sunday afternoons at 4 pm to bring in new inventory. Some weeks, this will be a project of a few minutes; others it will take an hour or more. If the first night is any indication, this is filling a huge need in our community--we can give thanks to God for the collaboration of organizations and people that are answering the call to feed our hungry young people.