Mormon Helping Hands Project Collects Food Throughout La Mesa

The Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints recently made the following announcement:

Saturday, April 27th was the annual Statewide Mormon Helping Hands “Day of Service”, where members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints along with friends and neighbors join together to serve their communities throughout California.  In La Mesa, the project included gathering food for the San Diego Food Bank and helping community members fill in their family trees.

Robin Gephart, organizer, toured the San Diego Food Bank before choosing a food drive as their project and found a great need for help at this time of year. 

“My time at the Food Bank was both eye-opening and humbling,” she said. 

Alan Baum, manager of the La Mesa Vons grocery store, generously donated 4,500 paper bags and then 330 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known for its volunteerism) canvased their neighborhoods and found wonderful and compassionate friends and neighbors who were very willing to help. 

On Saturday, participants of all ages put on the signature Mormon Helping Hands “yellow vests” and began receiving and sorting the food that had been gathered.  By the end 8,373 lbs. of food had been collected. 

 “We are thrilled with the results and grateful for the generosity of our neighbors," said Gephart. 

We also wanted to share our family history facility and skills with our community this year; so we invited friends and neighbors to join us at the San Diego Family History Center in Mission Valley (which is open to the public). 

With the help of our young people, we were able to fill in 34 family trees and pass along some great research information. 

10-year old Ryan Smith of La Mesa summed up the day perfectly: “This is a great day.”