Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – The Vallarta Food Bank continues to grow as volunteers work to support Puerto Vallarta families struggling to survive the economic impact of COVID-19. In addition to delivering 1,500 despensas every week, earlier this month, they opened a soup kitchen that serves hot meals 3 times a week.
Jimmy Plouff, one of the masterminds behind this grassroots movement, tells us more:
“Hey guys Jim here. I’ve been super busy (can everything stay fixed for 5 minutes please?!) but I wanted to catch up with everyone. There’s been a LOT going on. We have our new hot meal kitchen in full swing for the area around the food bank. About 200 meals are served every time we cook (3 days a week currently) and we are looking to expand our hot food initiative to other areas in need as we can.
While we are still producing and providing about 1500 despensas a week we are trying to reduce the amount of despensas we hand out as they’re more expensive than hot food by volume served and not everyone has resources to cook them. Also demand dropped for a little while and is now headed back up.
We prepare hearty, nutritious, and filling meals at our new permanent location. Many folks are quite happy to receive the hot meals and many comment that this is the first real meat they have had in months. One day this week we served fresh made pozole with pork and fresh veggies. Last week there was turkey and vegetable pasta, picadillo with rice, and lentil soup with veggies and turkey.
Our amazing team of volunteers is in the kitchen early to crank out big pots of delicious hot meals. If you can help us by donating unopened food products for use in our kitchen we’ll find something to use it in! If you’d like to donate baked goods we’d love to give them out! Our location and hours are below.
We now have a fairly nice little stock of basic medications for those with a prescription and medical need. If you have leftover medicine at home we’d love to have it on hand! Common stuff like metformin, losartan, and glibenclamida are always needed in quantity. We do all we can to keep our little shelf stocked. If you can help by donating items or maybe funding something on our list of things people have requested we’d really appreciate that!
Finally the storm season has arrived. Vallarta Food Bank is geared up and preparing for the next time Vallarta needs more. We are now accepting storm relief supplies in any form. Clothing, food items, underwear, diapers, household goods, water filtration units, first aid supplies, cleaning items and chemicals you name it. If you lost your home or everything in it right now… what would you miss? We need it! Bring it all and drop it off!
We are located at Rio Lerma 468, in Colonia Lopez Mateos. Look for our logo! We are open Monday through Friday from 9 am till 2 pm. (outside those hours please message us and we’ll send someone to come pick it up or wait for you.)
Thanks to everyone who donates, volunteers, and supports the Vallarta Food Bank! We love you! Together we are #VallartaStrong.”
The Vallarta Food Bank is 100% volunteer based, but all of their work would be impossible without the generosity of donors and supporters. If you would like to help the families of Puerto Vallarta get through these trying times, please visit please visit vallartafoodbank.com for donation information. If you would like to receive a U.S. tax receipt for your donation, please visit casajojofoundation.org.
