Homestead Volunteers Provide Food For Needy Families

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- It's an assembly line of food boxes, at the Park Place AME Church in Homestead. The Food Baskets program loads church vans and utility vehicles with Christmas cheer for the needy.

Food Baskets is led by founder Joe McCain and organizer Tanika Taylor. But Joe's generosity did not begin with food.

"I would just fill my car with gloves, socks and hats and drive around the Pittsburgh area, Allegheny County, and look for homeless people," he recalls. "And this'll be my 18th year of doing it."

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Then he came up with an ambitious plan to feed local families. The number of food boxes has doubled in three years, from 650 to 1,300. The program depends on volunteers and Joe McCain's employers.

He loads the boxes at Consumer's Produce in the Strip District, where he works as a salesman. His company did a pretty good selling job, too. They got the vendors to donate all the produce.

The church basement is filled with food boxes for family members, like Debra Scott of Homestead.

"I just became a great grandmother," she says. "And she was born on Thanksgiving day. And I see this as a blessing, honest!"

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The Food Baskets group has serves 23 communities. Tanika Taylor says boxes will also be available at the Homestead church from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

"It's for anybody," she says. "Anybody that we can reach, we want them to come and pick up a box."

Next year, Joe McCain says he hopes to reach even more people.

"I always wanted to give back to my community," he says. "I wish I could do more, you know what I'm saying? I'm glad everybody believed in me, and it turned out well."