On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, off of Camelback Road and 19th Ave., a special thing happens. People come together from all walks of life to serve each other, meet other’s physical needs, and talk about Jesus. Sometimes these conversations happen in Spanish, sometimes in English, and every once in a while, through Google Translate, but it’s consistent and genuine and life-giving to all involved.

This is City Hope, a food bank that is committed to meeting the needs of the people who live next door to them. There's a need for this type of work in Phoenix - nearly 9,500 people were reported homeless as of January this year according to the latest Point-In-Time report by Maricopa County. However, only one in five guests at City Hope are truly homeless. Most use this center as a method of prevention - a way to keep a roof over their heads by saving some money at the grocery store. The cost of living in Phoenix has gone up almost $550 a month this year, meaning that people who had retired years ago now can no longer afford the cost of living, nor do they have enough to move away.

While City Hope is operated with the intention and hope that those they serve would come to know Jesus, it’s widely recognized that their guests may not be knowingly looking for that. Every volunteer has stories of guests who were uninterested in talking about faith, but after spending some time with each other and bonding over commonalities, most are more comfortable and open to listening.

“I had a guest who was very closed off to Christianity - everything I said he would disagree with,” shared Melody Stablein, a Grand Canyon University student and frequent City Hope volunteer.

“I asked what his favorite fruit was, he said it was peaches, and I said ‘well look the Lord provided peaches here for you today,’ and he was very determined that even that was not God. Later, after we had talked some more, I asked if I could practice sharing the gospel with him, and he said yes, and as I talked, I could see a little bit of softness coming out as I talked and prayed for him.”

Gould calls that experience ‘watering’ - not everyone who passes through City Hope’s doors will want all that they are offering, and that is alright with him. However, most guests are interested, and he attributes this primarily to the environment that City Hope has created, a culture of respect and service that everyone is hungry for. 

“It's crazy to watch a 20-year-old college girl holding hands with a 65-year-old homeless man and they're both in tears with their eyes closed. Praying. Totally different. Would never have engaged. Really, frankly, as a leader, I wouldn't have said that would be a safe thing in a different setting, but this is the right setting for that type of connection and evangelism.” 

As the volunteers prepare to open the doors and welcome that day’s guests, they meet briefly for a time of prayer and devotion. Many of the volunteers who come pick a day to come each week, creating a community that knows each other well, so the time is filled with catching up and trading stories from the week prior. Gould ends the time with a brief message and a prayer, encouraging the volunteers to be ‘a light’ to whoever comes in that day. 

“When people come into this space, and they see the saints of God love like this, they say ‘what is that? This is crazy,’ says Gould.

“The world has no box to put that type of love in. Let’s be those types of people and provide a place of light for our guests - the gospel, exposure to the good news, that’s what people need more than anything else we can offer them.”

This is consistently the theme of City Hope - provide food and clothing, yes, but offer more than just that. Almost 40% of City Hope guests are here for the first time, but for those who are consistently showing up and struggling with more than just food insecurity, City Hope partners with places like the Phoenix Rescue Mission, halfway houses, and Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS) to help get people off the streets and into better spaces.

While these resources are good, and she knows that the food she offers is meeting a need, Stablein says that her chief desire in serving here is to offer guests “something that's so much more long lasting than food, and something that will cherish them forever, last with them forever.”

Being served at City Hope starts outside the building. Guests begin to line up around 40 minutes before the doors open at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on some Saturdays, people begin lining up as early as 7:45 a.m. for the 9 a.m. distribution. Some guests visit with each other as they wait to be checked in, where they share their name, their ID, and how many people are in their household to the volunteers manning the check-in software. 

Once they’ve been verified, guests are given a number and welcomed into City Hope’s lobby, where there is a play space for their kids and chairs lining the walls. Guests wait here according to their number for a personal shopper to accompany them. City Hope has a different model than many other food banks, providing a personal shopper for each guest to shop with and choose what they want as they go down the aisles of the ‘store’ set up past the lobby. Not only does this provide opportunities to build relationships and bring dignity to their guests, but not everyone likes or wants everything that they offer, says Gould, and giving them a box half-full of things they don’t want is just wasting food.

“You’d be amazed at the times when I’ve asked ‘Do you want Oreos or Fig Newtons?’ And the guest says ‘I don’t like either.’ And I thought that’s impossible, everyone loves Oreos - I would have put those in your box. It’s great that they get to choose,... to say ok, let’s make sure that these will go to someone who needs it - that stewardship is really important.”

That intentional stewardship goes into every aspect of City Hope. They purposefully cap it at 80 guests per distribution to ensure that all their guests can fill up their shopping cart with around $200 worth of first-rate products - everything from canned goods to meat to wipes to clothing. There’s an emphasis on quality, as the staff at City Hope only offers people things that they would want and choose at a normal store. Crates of food are stacked to the ceiling in the back, but only the best things are moved up to the front for guests to choose from.

After a guest has shopped through all the aisles and chosen the clothing items they want, their personal shopper offers them access to any resources that might have come up during their conversation. A few tables near the door hold information on homeless shelters, English class locations, the times City Hope and their sponsoring church right down the street, Christ Church, is open, and racks of Bibles in all different languages. Each Bible has been highlighted and tabbed with different passages of Scripture that talk about Jesus and what He has done, offer encouragement, and share hope. Every guest leaves City Hope having been prayed over, offered a Bible, and invited to connect further. This is where Gould, and all the volunteers, feel their real ministry takes place. 

"I think a lot of [what we do] at City Hope is planting a seed,” says Stablein. “You're there and you show up and then you wonder ‘did I do anything?’ and you don't get to always see the fruit that comes from it, but the Lord is sovereign and He is working no matter what.”

Another volunteer, Jim Crawford, said that beyond sharing God with those he’s shopped with, he has gained a new understanding of God just by volunteering here.

“The people we see here, the way they look on the outside, that’s how we look to God on the inside - very filthy, very out of order… The only way He sees us as clean is through the blood of Jesus Christ, and that is just very cool.”

Some of the guests that come to City Hope are frequent fliers, some will only come once or twice, and some will end up attending Christ Church or another church in the area because of City Hope and coming to faith. Regardless of their story, every guest will leave with a cart full of groceries, a heart that’s been prayed over, and volunteers who have been impacted by meeting them.

“What I learned, which I already knew but hadn’t experienced, was that the people that you see don't look like you, and they might look a little rough on the outside, inside, they’re just the same as you,” says Crawford, “and I know that God loves them just the same as He loves me.”

City Hope’s motto is Help and Hope in Jesus’ Name; and while it’s implied that the help and hope is for the guests that they serve, volunteers have been given help and hope just by serving here. Besides the stories of guests turned volunteers, there’s also stories like Crawford’s, who came in uncomfortable and wanted to stick to the behind-the-scenes work, but found a place to grow in confidence in sharing his faith, something that he attributes to City Hope and what it offers everyone who walks inside.

“You’ve spent some time with them, given them some food, talked with them, and then it’s an opportunity at the end to say ‘hey, do you know Jesus?’”