DOWNEY — Desert Reign Church is preparing to kick off a fundraising campaign for its food distribution ministry, which church leaders say has grown past its current capabilities.

Desert Reign currently offers a walk-up food distribution six days out of the week, in addition to a drive thru giveaway every other week. The program started in 2015 under former assistant pastor Alex Bernard, and was taken over by the church’s outreach director Leo Lopez in 2020 after Bernard’s passing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The church gets its food from Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, as well as though it’s Extra Helpings program, where it picks up food from stores that is no longer able to be sold. The food is then distributed entirely by volunteers.

“We first started out doing just food,” said Lopez. “Our church’s mission is ‘love Jesus, love people,’ so we’re all about loving people, especially during hard times.”

Lopez says the church has seen the food ministry “grow exponentially.” Last year alone, the church was able to collect and distribute over 750,000 pounds of food.

“We started with like 60 families, and now we’re over 300,” said Lopez. “It just keeps growing; We keep partnering up with different stores.

“Aside from food, we have a resource center through our food pantry that we’re able to give couches, beds, appliances, and different things to families who need them. We do connect with different organizations within Downey, and they reach out to us when they know there’s a family in need.”

Desert Reign says that around 70% of those helped are from Downey; it’s a statistic that Senior Pastor Daniel Dutch finds somewhat surprising.

“You wouldn’t think that there would be a big food insecurity need here, but there is,” said Dutch. “I’m out in the parking lot and I’m talking with a lot of the people… and many times, they’re making a decision on whether to go hungry or to pay rent.”

The distribution has grown so much, in fact, that the church has been forced to turn some donations and partnerships away due to lack of available space and storage capacity.

“We do, on our drive thru, sometimes have to some companies away, which really hurts us,” said Lopez. “It’s not because we can’t supply it, it’s just that we don’t have the capacity of storage to do that.

“There’s a lot of warehouses, a lot of organizations, a lot of stores that find out about us and want to partner with us, but we have to say no because we just have the capacity.”

Dutch said that the church has been forced to limit the distribution’s growth.

“Basically, we’re using our patio…That’s all full,” said Dutch. “We just rented two spaces, and they’re full.”

The church is currently coming up with a plan to address the increased demand. Ultimately, more funding will likely be needed. Dutch says the ministry has cost about $12,000 a month.

“Obviously, the church is taking the brunt of all the funding up to this point, but we know that there’s people out there that would like to help with this, especially during the holidays, of course,” said Dutch. “We’re looking at some space where we can actually organize and be a little bit more efficient, and maybe hire an employee or two.”

Still, Dutch described the ministry as “a divine resource,” saying that he believed that “the more we give away, the more we seem to receive.”

“The Lord has provided this resource, and it’s up to us to manage it properly.”