This past November, the meals program at Sacred Heart Church in Lower Queen Anne shut down due to lack of funding. But the new year may bring new hope, now that openhearted donors have taken up the cause.
“It’s looking like it’s definitely going to reopen,” said Elise Hale-Case, manager for the meal program. A reopening date has not been set, she said.
Hale-Case said the program needed approximately $5,000 a month to cover her full-time salary and operational costs, but was strapped for cash last year.
Since the program closed, however, she said that more than $40,000 in donations had come in by late December.
She said that if the program raises $100,000, it could remain open for two years. Hale-Case would manage the program, which would reopen in the basement of Sacred Heart Church, 205 Second Ave. N. A group of volunteers would help distribute up to 500 sack lunches a week.
Even with close to a year’s operating expenses in hand, Hale-Case said there’s one more hitch to restarting the program: The program needs to be affiliated with the nonprofit Food Lifeline.
Before its closure two months ago, the program ran under the auspices of St. Vincent de Paul (“St. Vincent de Paul to close Queen Anne meals program,” RC, Nov. 9, 2011). The Catholic volunteer organization helped the program become a member agency of Food Lifeline, a nonprofit dedicated to ending hunger.
But when St. Vincent de Paul ended its support, the program lost its tether to Food Lifeline. That lost connection means that even if the program reopens, it can no longer utilize Food Lifeline services, such as access to some of the 35 million pounds of food the nonprofit distributes throughout the state each year.
While Sacred Heart Church could become a member, Hale-Case said the process of finalizing membership takes time. Still, she said, the meals program is exploring numerous options.
Hale-Case said the $40,000 raised so far can be credited to news reports about the meals program’s closure that appeared in Real Change and the Seattle Times.
The response, she said, has been inspirational:
“I think it’s pretty incredible in this time, with the economy as it is, that people are willing to give to keep an operation like this going.”