Light of Life feeding hundreds of families in need Easter weekend
Pittsburgh (KDKA) - The Light of Life Rescue Mission is providing about 1,000 free meals to Pittsburgh families in need this Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
It's a bittersweet day for dozens of volunteers because it's the last time they will package meals at the mission's North Avenue location because they're expanding to serve even more people soon.
It's a true labor of love to make sure families in need aren't forgotten on Easter weekend.
"It's something that is hard to explain until you've done it, but anyone has not volunteered, I highly recommend it," said Carol Bires, a Light of Life volunteer.
Volunteers pre-packaged meals on the morning of Good Friday then they delivered the food to people living in 14 high-rises in Pittsburgh neighborhoods.
"We all feel very blessed that we can do it and just seeing the smiles on people's faces when we arrive is good," Bires said.
Their Good Friday will end with a warm dinner and service at the mission's shelter on Voeghtly Street from 2:30-6:00 p.m. and they will also serve dinner for Easter Sunday starting at 5:30 p.m.
Annie Cairns, senior marketing and communications manager for Light of Life, said 1 in 7 individuals in southwestern Pennsylvania are food insecure. She said the statistics come from Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
More than 1,000 people will receive a free meal over the entire Easter weekend. Cairns said it's all thanks to donors and their more than 100 volunteers.
"Without our donors we wouldn't be able to make any of this happen so our donations that come in go towards all over our meals and of course, without our faithful volunteers we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing today here at all," Cairns said.
"Once you walk through these doors, you'll never be the same. I think everyone one of our volunteers feels that way every time we do so," Bires said.
They won't make any more memories preparing and packaging food in the small kitchen in the North Avenue location. But they'll have more space when Light of Life opens its new building on Ridge Avenue early this summer.
"Since we've been here for 50 years, we've watched so many lives just transformed throughout the years and although we are moving into our new building ridge recovery place which will be home to all our long-term programming, it's just a bittersweet moment where we watch this building close and we make new memories somewhere else," Cairns said.
She said the number of people they help who are experiencing homelessness is still increasing.
Cairns said one of the mission's main goals is to not only get people off the street, but to help them with long-term life transformation to get them out of homelessness.
They believe hope can start with a meal.
"Our services have obviously increased and for us moving into our new building early Summer, we hope it will combat some of the homeless increase we've seen in our city," said Cairns.
Cairns shared some statistics with KDKA. She said women and children are considered the fastest growing homeless population.
Out of the people experiencing homelessness identified in Winter of 2022 in Allegheny County, about 37 percent were women and about 20 percent were children, according to Allegheny County Department of Human Services.
2,836 Homeless Children in Allegheny County reported for the 2021-2022 School Year, according to the Homeless Children's Education Fund (HCEF).
In 2022, Light of Life served 3,000+ unique guests, served 500,000+ meals between their kitchen and food pantry, and they provided 7,533 total emergency shelter bed nights.