Announcing the Grand Opening of our new Pittsburg Free Dining Room

The joint partnership of Loaves & Fishes of Contra Costa (LFCC) and the St. Vincent de Paul Society (SVdP) of Contra Costa County held a Grand Opening ceremony at our new 2,000 sq ft, state of the art, free dining room located at 1415 Simpson Court, off Gladstone Drive at E. Leland Avenue. The new dining room is located on the Simpson Court side of the SVdP Thrift Store in Pittsburg.

On April 15, 2010 a Ground Breaking ceremony was held and construction began on what is now a thriving new dining room. Two months to the day that construction began, diners were served a meal of herb roasted chicken, creamy pasta primavera, garden salad, fresh fruit and dessert.

Just like you would expect, opening day was a mix of volunteers, prepping food, planning events, and coordinating people. A second thing you learn to expect with a major event is that something would go wrong. The power decided not to cooperate and the lights went dim for a minute or two, but all was calmed by SVdP Operations Manager Willie and his crew, who solved our electrical needs so the show could go on as planned.

The ceremony started promptly at 10:30 am, with a blessing of the facility. Following the blessing, our joint partnership team explained what SVdP and LFCC hoped to accomplish by opening the new facility. We were able to honor and thank our foundation partners who provided the funding to open the new dining room. The ceremony concluded on time with guests being allowed to tour the facility and eat lunch. Over 187 clients and visitors dined in our new facility.

We now begin a new era for LFCC. We currently are operating five LFCC managed sites, which means we staff the site with a manager and other personnel. We then provide volunteers to prepare serve and clean up the facilities. We also have three partner sites that we make meals for daily. All totaled our expanded services will feed 750-800 people a day.

LFCC has expanded to meet the growing needs in our community. Families with small children, the elderly and the working poor make up 75% of the increase in service. Many of these people could not imagine just a few short years ago they might need this service. It is through your generous support that we are able to meet that increased demand.

Pittsburg was the home of LFCC. We began 27 years ago as Loaves & Fishes of Pittsburg. Over the years we have had two Pittsburg locations, though the central catering kitchen has remained a fixture in Pittsburg for ten years. One of the biggest challenges has been stability of locations. Our goal with the joint partnership location in Pittsburg was to add stability to the dining room. We have signed a fifteen year agreement with St. Vincent de Paul to run the dining room facilities. In addition, LFCC is negotiating our leases across East County to have stable homes in the cities we serve. In Antioch we moved to the American Legion Hall to expand our operation. The Hall provides more seating, better facilities and a central location. We hope to negotiate a 5 year lease for this site. In Oakley our move to the Redman Hall on Main Street will be followed with a long term lease as well. Our other new site in Bay Point will come up for a long term leasing agreement before the end of this year. We welcome you to call Rodger Jensen, our Volunteer Services Manager, to arrange an orientation to volunteer. We also ask you to consider Loaves & Fishes when you plan to donate to a charity in your community.