BBCF 2024 Grant Recipient Spotlight: United Christian Care Center of Vidor

The mission of the United Christian Care Center of Vidor is to provide assistance with basic services and food for people in the Orange County area.

During the COVID pandemic, they, like most other food pantries across the nation, opted for a drive-through-style food distribution plan. Four years later, Gayle Nagai, a member of the organization’s board of directors and the ultimate volunteer, said that process still works for them.

United Christian Care Center provides 25-pound food boxes three mornings a week and one evening a month to local residents. From January to August 2023, they served more than 40,000 individuals from nearly 14,000 families. Twenty-eight percent of those individuals are children and 27 percent are over the age of 60. As the need continues to rise, the center projects they will serve more than 50,000 people in 2024. The work is supported by local churches and donors, like the Brookshire Brothers Charitable Foundation, and they work closely with numerous other local nonprofits to share as many resources as possible.

It takes all hands on deck to unload deliveries from the Southeast Texas Food Bank, count inventory, restock the shelves and freezers and greet people as they drive through to pick up their food. There are no paid staff members and each week they average around 35 to 40 volunteers. Of course, they are always looking for new people wanting to help.

Eighty-six year-old Anita Ezell says she’s lost track of the number of years she has volunteered at the center, but she appreciates the opportunity to get out of the house and help where she can. Tonya Jarrell works two days a week just “to help people out.”

“I don’t work, so I might as donate (my time). I just want to do something for someone else,” Jarrell said.