When Jessica Faddis was hired as the executive director for the Carmel Youth Center, she knew she had found her dream job, her happy place, her home. For the young woman who considers helping others her life’s mission, her passionate pastime, and her favorite team sport, she wholeheartedly embraced the place that governs kids, while fostering their fitness, creativity, and critical thinking skills. Thus, when COVID-19 closed down the center in March 2020, Faddis lost more than her daily job; she lost her purpose.
“I don’t sit still easily,” said Faddis. “I needed a way to give. I had participated in Operation Holiday Cheer at Christmas, so I started thinking about community need. I thought of all the workers who’d lose their jobs as the hospitality industry shut down, plus food-service workers, retail employees, and all the local families already facing food insecurity, who risked losing support as nonprofit organizations lost funding.”
Faddis contacted Tanya Kosta, with whom she had worked on Operation Holiday Cheer, who was having the same concerns about the wellbeing of others under the shelter-in-place order. On April 1, 2020, they launched ALL IN Monterey, so named because they knew, if they were going to help their community, they were going to have to go “all in.”
Neither a business nor a nonprofit organization ALL IN is a community group of volunteers working together to satisfy needs. They began by asking friends to make sandwiches they could hand to the hungry. When they implored Yesenia Salvatierra-Velare — whose husband’s job was a casualty of COVID — to ask 10 friends to make 10 sandwiches each, she said, “Is 100 all you need?” They made 250 sandwiches, which quickly grew to 1,200 sandwiches, twice a week.
A year later, they’re still making sandwiches.
“Everything we make and everything we provide is fresh and clean and offered with respect,” said Faddis. “We want to keep people healthy and fed and always feeling dignity, which is why one of our mottos is, ‘No smashed bread.’ Everyone deserves quality provisions.”
On April 1, a dozen ALL IN volunteers gathered to celebrate the one-year anniversary of an effort they never imagined would last more than a month. Still, the needs continue to shift, to grow, to inspire them to stay in service.
Navigating changing needs
As the pandemic persists, so does the need to mitigate hunger, homelessness, and a sense of hopelessness built by uncertainty around something folks assumed would last a matter of weeks. ALL IN Monterey volunteers want to make sure no one gives up. And they don’t intend to themselves.
“No one could have foreseen that the pandemic would last this long,” said Kosta. “What started with ‘Let’s make sandwiches,’ has grown to an organization of a dozen core administrators who have found their niche and run with it, enabling us and an army of other volunteers to run toward different needs as they arise. The pandemic started and then the fires happened and then Christmas came along. With each event, community needs have shifted and grown. We just keep pivoting to meet needs.”
No one is paid for their efforts. ALL IN members volunteer time around the edges of their jobs or in the absence of jobs, throughout their nights and on weekends.
“ALL IN is a full-time job without a salary,” said Kosta. “It is an emotional investment. We are so grateful to have so many people who want to help us help others, and we are deeply into this one year later. Our job is not to question or judge but to smile, offer kindness, and provide whatever else people need.”
At the start, as ALL IN began gathering donations, Kosta called Monterey Peninsula Union School District Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh, who rolled up his sleeves, as did Seaside High Principal Aaron Sanders, who provided portable classrooms for a food locker, market, and an essentials boutique.
“We have three rooms at Seaside High, plus three containers,” said Kosta. “They’re not open to the public every day, but we host our ‘Giving Market’ two days a week, where people can come to grocery shop or receive food. We also have our ‘Kindness Closet,’ which has clothing, diapers, cleaning products, and other life essentials. Anyone’s welcome; everyone’s welcome. If you need it, come and get it.”
Information about their services is posted on their Facebook page.
ALL IN still serves between 300 and 600 people during each of their two market days. They also provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner to nearly 100 residents of the warming shelter in Salinas, which provides overnight housing to women, men, and families at a facility in downtown Salinas.
As a trusted partner with the Food Bank for Monterey County, ALL IN augments donations to keep providing food to a wider community in an unprecedented time of need.
The Food Bank for Monterey County reports a 400% increase in demand for food since the start of the pandemic and estimates that one in four people in Monterey County is hungry. ALL IN has been working with the food bank to distribute food and other essential groceries to 2,000 families per week.
“I can think of few people in my life who have made such an impression on their community,” said Melissa Kendrick, executive director of the Food Bank. “Tanya Kosta saw a need and gathered people to help her meet it. So nimble and flexible, she has become a tremendous partner through her ability to distribute unbelievable amounts of food.”
It takes a village to feed a community
When COVID closed down the county, it took English Ales Brewery of Marina with it, for a projected three weeks, which became nearly three months. Instead of considering closing for good, they took time to refurbish the pub as a symbol and reminder that this family business had a future. They also looked out into the community to see who was in need.
“You meet ALL IN members, and you trust them right away,” said co-owner Karen Blackwell-Harrison. “Our first question was, ‘How can we help?’ No one helps in this community like my family pub.”
Every week, for a year, Blackwell-Harrison has worked with Kosta and her crew to post lists of requested donations, from which she creates an Amazon Wish List. Community members go online to make purchases, and 60 to 70 boxes of goods arrive daily at English Ales Brewery, where Blackwell-Harrison and her staff receive, sort, store, and provide the products to ALL IN Monterey.
“After my dad offered the use of a refrigerator,” she said, “we also have become the drop-off spot for sandwiches and pallets of other perishables.”
Now that the Brewery has reopened, a lot of people drop off their donations in person, said Blackwell-Harrison, and stay for lunch or a pint. Blackwell-Harrison responds to every single donor with a handwritten thank you note.
“We came so close to losing our family brewery after 21 years in business,” Harrison-Blackwell said. “We are volunteers for ALL IN Monterey, but we also are recipients of their kindness. When life is out of control, finding ways to help others gives us purpose and structure and a focus outside of ourselves. ALL IN has helped us as much as we’ve helped them.”
Extending community service
ALL IN Monterey has taken another step in their commitment to serving the community during COVID by scheduling vaccinations for their most vulnerable community members, through their collaboration with Central Avenue Pharmacy (CAPrx) in Pacific Grove.
Like most pharmacies in the country, CAPrx has been waiting and watching to receive their federal allocation of the vaccine. Last week, from AmerisourceBergen Corporation, they received a one-time allotment to vaccinate 1,170 people with a double dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
“When we received our allocation,” said pharmacist Jasmine Chan, “I wanted to take care of our CAPrx waitlist patients, and then reach out to people in our various communities who don’t have access to computers or iPhones to receive email — people who, for whatever reason, would have a difficult time scheduling appointments to get vaccinated.”
Chan spoke with Supervisor Wendy Root Askew, who put her in touch with Tanya Kosta, to help her allocate a portion of her vaccine allotment through ALL IN Monterey.
“A lot of the connections ALL IN has made in the last year has enabled them to work with populations that typically don’t have a lot of trust in the system, to create and maintain relationships,” said Chan, “with people who’ve had a really tough year. This enables us to extend our reach to get these communities vaccinated, particularly in remote locations. Sometimes people need to be met where they are.”
The first vaccination clinic for ALL IN Monterey clients was held at Bayonet & Blackhorse Golf Course in Seaside April 5. Other vaccination clinics will follow, says Chan, based on vaccine allocations.
“It would be great to get in the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine,” said Chan, “so people who have a hard time accessing vaccination clinics can get the ‘one and done’ single-dose vaccine.”
Looking forward
As Jessica Faddis prepares to reopen the Carmel Youth Center, she realizes she has developed the stamina to continue supporting a wider community need through ALL IN Monterey, as well.
“If we weren’t feeding people during a pandemic,” said Faddis, “we’d be looking for another need to satisfy among our neighbors and follow that. It’s who we are and what we do; when you put love and kindness into the world, it comes back to you.”
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