In mid-September, nearly 250 Latter-day Saints in Northern California helped assemble 1,500 boxes of food for people impacted by the Oroville Fire.
“I’ve been in office 16 years and I think I’ve been through eight different fires. They’ve gradually become worse and worse,” said Bill Connelly, Butte County supervisor for District 1.
Once assembled, the boxes were donated to the Oroville Hope Center, a nonprofit Christian outreach organization that provides food, clothing and resources to Butte County’s most vulnerable community members.
Connelly and other local government leaders — including Oroville’s mayor, Chuck Reynolds — witnessed the delivery before the food’s distribution to fire survivors.
“This is actually what we need. We need people putting food in other people’s pantries, especially those that are burned out or suffering from the COVID layoffs,” said Connelly.
“Probably 1,000 to 2,000 homes are gone and if you put two people in each home, I’d say 4,000 [people impacted by the fire] is probably a conservative figure,” he added.
Justin Toman, a Latter-day Saint from the area and the Gridley California Stake president, explained that a Hope Center representative reached out to him and asked if the Church could help find commodities for people impacted by the fire.
“In 20 minutes, the Welfare Department came back and said that they could,” said President Tolman.
As an expression of their faith to serve their fellow man, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsor Church service projects like this one by donating money primarily to the Church’s humanitarian fund and making other offerings to help provide relief for people in need around the world.
“We let them know that because of the generosity of members and their fast offerings that these things were possible,” shared President Tolman.
In addition to Latter-day Saints, members of Jordan Cross Ministries and the Rotary Club of Oroville also participated in the service initiative.
“We are blessed with opportunities to connect with our community, and with the people that are housing this service project in the Hope Center, and with people in the community that come to serve with us,” said Lena Sannar, a local school board member.
“There are so many that help out, and most of them help out silently,” said Mayor Reynolds.
“For those of that facilitated this gathering ... I just want to say thank you so much,” he added.