Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donates food, supplies to Warm Springs tribes
WARM SPRINGS, Ore. (KTVZ) -- On Wednesday morning, members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, along with missionaries and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, worked together to unload 24 pallets of food and supplies delivered to the Confederated Tribes by the church. The supplies were shipped from the Bishop’s Storehouse in Salt Lake City.
The church maintains 15 farms, five canneries and 110 food distribution centers called bishops’ storehouses, all staffed primarily by local volunteers. The church also has five additional processing plants that specialize in meat, milk, bread, grain and pasta, and soap. These facilities help provide assistance to church members in need and to local community partners.
The church provided the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs a smaller supply of food at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
A couple of weeks ago, Mitch Wilcox, president of the Redmond Stake for the church, contacted Danny Martinez, the emergency response officer for the Confederated Tribes. Martinez said he was grateful for the help, as the Tribes have been providing meals to quarantined families on the reservation since the beginning of the pandemic.
Martinez relies on Dorothea “Dot” Thurby as the manager of the social needs organization for the Confederated Tribes.
“We were just about out of all our supplies when I got the call,” Thurby said as she thanked Wilcox for the generous donation.
“We have also opened a warming center here on the reservation, and this food will help keep them fed as well,” she added.
The donated food and cleaning supplies will be distributed by Thurby's team as needed for quarantined families and those that find comfort in the warming shelter provided.
In 2020, the church sent over 800 truckloads of food to 380 food banks, homeless shelters and charitable agencies throughout the U.S. Collectively, these trucks supplied over 26 million meals to those in need. These truckloads came from several of the church's 110 bishops’ storehouses in the U.S. and Canada.
The main warehouse distribution center is located in Salt Lake City, Utah, with five additional regional hubs located in Oregon, California, Indiana, Georgia and Canada. The food was delivered by 46 dedicated long-haul truck drivers for Deseret Transportation, who drove more than 1.6 million miles during the COVID-19 pandemic.
