The fifth annual Feeding Hope Glowing with Hope 5K and one-mile fun run was Friday night at the Choctaw Community Center.
Previously known as Families Feeding Families, Feeding Hope serves meals to the community from their building at 424 E. Florida Street. The organization also provides other services to those in need.
Feeding Hope director Keri Juarez said the run is one of three fundraising events the organization has every year.
“It’s one of the events that helps keep Feeding Hope going,” Juarez said. “It’s the one that continues to help provide food, showers, laundry services and whatever other resources that we can provide out of that is what we like to do.”
She said a little more than 400 runners participated in the event.
“We’ve really grown,” Juarez said. “Our first year, we had a little over 100 and every year we’ve almost increased by 100.”
Feeding Hope made a little more than $10,000 from the registrations, according to Juarez, and sponsors help cover race expenses.
“What happens is, our sponsorships will pay some of our expenses like our timed race and things like that, water and all of those things,” Juarez said.
The next Feeding Hope fundraiser will be the third annual gala on Dec. 3 at Durant First United Methodist Church.
“That is our fundraiser where we are trying to raise about $50,000,” Juarez said. “That’s our biggest fundraiser of the year. We have a live auction and then we tell about everything that’s going on in the past year and what we plan to do the next year. So, there’s a lot of good information. It’s a free event and so we just want people to come out and if they are interested in supporting Feeding Hope, then we ask for donations there.”
Feeding Hope also has a golf tournament every June.
They will be serving a Thanksgiving meal from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day Nov. 26 at 424 E. Florida St.
“We invite the whole community,” Juarez said. “Anybody that’s in need of a meal, who doesn’t have somebody to celebrate with and wants a good home-cooked actual Thanksgiving traditional meal, we’ll have that there.”
Juarez said Feeding Hope is continuing to grow and will be announcing new things at the gala in December.
“We’ve got permits on our apartments across the street,” Juarez said. “So, we’ll have 12 rooming houses is what it will be called. What that will house is 12 chronically homeless people that we’ve had living in our area for the last two years. That’s one of the qualifications.”
Juarez expressed appreciation to the community for supporting Feeding Hope.
“We’re really growing,” Juarez said. “I think it took a little while for them to kind of figure out what we were doing and who we are and we are branding ourselves. A lot of people thought we were only feeding homeless people, but we are doing is we are feeding anyone in need.
“There’s no qualifications or anything. Anybody who needs a meal. Anyone can come and eat at Feeding Hope and so I just want to make sure that everyone knows that. If you cannot afford groceries or a short that week or you need to pay your electric versus food that week, we would rather you pay your electric and come eat with us at Feeding Hope.”
Feeding Hope serves meals from 5-6 p.m. every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Durant Church of Christ serves the meals at the same time on Saturdays.
“When everybody lost SNAP, Durant Church of Christ stepped up and said, ‘We’re going to feed everybody who’s hungry in attendance with you guys,’ and so we’ve just been team-working it,” Juarez said.
According to Juarez, the organization serves approximately 300 meals per week and about 375 total including what Durant Church of Christ serves.
“We’re just so thankful for all of the community support and hope that they attend our gala so they can know what we have going on and what’s coming up, so they can see if they’re interested in the continuing the support and find out what we’re really trying to truly do,” Juarez said.
The Feeding Hope Glowing with Hope 5K also included a fun run.
