CityServe: Illuminating Hope in the Darkness

BAKERSFIELD, CA – CityServe is a faith-based organization that enlists and mobilizes local churches to

• expand a church’s capacity to minister to a specific initiative,
• empower more people to be a light in their community, and
• offer Biblical solutions to the broken people in the community.

Farmers to Families Food Box Program

The organization engages in 10 different initiatives designed to illuminate hope in the darkness. Its participation in the USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box Program has become a significant part of the ministry this year. The CityServe Network has delivered over 23,000,000 pounds of food to American families during the COVID-19 crisis.

According to an October 30 CityServe press release, “Food insecurity for American households has reached its highest level with nearly 30 million Americans reporting they do not have enough to eat.”

The already proven CityServe distribution model was ideal for bringing food from USDA-approved food supply contractors to families most affected by the crisis.

• CityServe delivered approximately 600 tractor-trailer loads of packaged and boxed foods to predetermined HUBs. The HUBs are cooperating churches and FBOs that have adequate capacity to serve as a distribution center.
• The food boxes are then distributed to churches and faith-based entities that become points of distribution (PODs) for their local area.

CityServe continues to assist the Farmers to Families Food Box Program and plans to do so as long as the program remains in effect. Currently, the program is scheduled to sundown as of December 31, 2020. As long as a need persists, the USDA is likely to extend the program.

Other Initiatives

The Farmers to Families Food Box Program fits under the umbrella of the CityServe Hunger Initiative.

Its other initiatives include working with churches to minister to widows, orphans, addicts, prisoners, the poor, the vulnerable, the exploited, the unreached.

CityServe recognizes that more than 11% of young Americans are neither enrolled in school nor employed. This group is eight times more vulnerable to the temptation to commit crimes and, therefore, serving time as their schooled and employed peers. At 70%, an even greater number of young people confess that they suffer anxiety and depression.

The exploited additionally identifies young people who have unstable living conditions, a relative with a substance abuse problem, addictions of their own, and victims of sexual abuse as prime candidates for the growing menace of human trafficking in the U.S. Project Rescue is a CityServe project to raise awareness of and empower churches to minister to this group.

CityServe is assisting a network of churches and faith-based organizations to minister together to effectively reach broken people that a single church may lack the capacity or capability to do so alone.

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