Diapers, formula, and baby food are in constant demand at the Cordova Community Food Locker. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) collected all these in its recent donation drive as well as non-perishable food items, for the benefit of the food locker and its patrons. The drive culminated on April 30th, when participants brought their donations to the central collection location at the Cordova Stake building of the church on Wisseman Drive in Sacramento.

Besides its many relief operations throughout the world and continuing local service projects, the LDS church chooses one day each year to provide coordinated service in an individual way in each Stake. The Cordova Stake this year chose to carry out the donation drive.

Throughout the month of April members gathered items and reached out to neighbors for their contributions. Michael Goold, local public affairs director for the church, coordinated the effort. At the Stake building, youth of the church worked hard for three hours sorting the goods into categories and loading them up for transportation. The clothing and household items they loaded into two pods for Deseret Industries Thrift Store in Sacramento. They filled a trailer with food and baby supplies for the food locker. On May 2nd, Goold, along with Wayne Langford, president of the Cordova region (or Stake) of the LDS Church, brought the donations to the food locker located at St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Rancho Cordova and transferred them over to Deacon Walter J. Little, creator/director of the food locker.

“It was a great effort,” Goold said. “We think it’s a great way for our church to interact with the Catholic Church and the Acts of Mercy and to make our community a better place to live, and help those less fortunate than us.”

Since its inception in 1987 through December of 2015, the Cordova Community Food Locker has provided 16,183,404 meals to 1,798,156 individuals. From the beginning, the food locker has been a community project rather than a Catholic Church project, said Little. “A large portion of the community came on board, and the City Council, and I think that’s what makes it the success that it is,” he explained. “That’s where the success really stems from.”

The food locker is associated with Sacramento Food Bank Services and receives food items regularly from that source, as well as from Federal government sources. Safeway and other grocery outlets provide recently outdated items such as bread and dairy to the food locker. Donations from the local community also play an important part.

“We’re always looking for ways to give more,” Little said. The food locker is one of the contenders for City of Rancho Cordova Proposition H funds, the distribution of which will be decided soon for the coming years.