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Linda Lampe’s Worth Saving thrift store was supposed to be closed on the day of our interview, but she was otherwise occupied—fixing lunch in the back kitchen for a homeless man. He was one of the many people who came by needing food and a word of encouragement, knowing they could get both from Lampe without judgment.
The downtown store has been the base of Lampe’s Food Angels project for close to six years, and with all the complications of shutting it down and moving the operation to the more remote Salvation Army’s 910 Buena Vista Road location, what weighs heaviest on her mind is, “Where are my babies going to go?”
“I have cried so much, my soul is rusty,” she said. “There’s so many people that come to me. My homeless friends. My senior citizen friends. This is what we are called to do. This is what we live and breathe.”
At their peak during COVID, Food Angels fed 1,100 families—5,000 people—a week. Funded partly by private donations, they have relied primarily on the profits from Linda’s husband Patrick’s real estate business. Following a heart attack and open chest surgery, he has been forced to scale back his work, throwing the program into financial straits.
“I reached out to many churches and nonprofit agencies in this town,” she said. “I was told it’s not their calling, they didn’t have enough money, they didn’t have enough people, they didn’t know how. I got all kinds of answers.”
Lampe said she could not understand how local organizations, with as many as 3,000 members, could not do the work she and a handful of volunteers had done for years.
“They said, ‘We don’t have enough help,’” she said. “But a church is not a calling or a suggestion. Jesus said, ‘If you love me, feed my sheep.’ I can tell you my biggest challenge here for a while was not becoming bitter. I want to be better, and I wasn’t going to give up.”
One person who did not turn away was Major Maria Romero of the Hollister Salvation Army, who met with Lampe and agreed to let her run food distribution from the Buena Vista Road facility. The Salvation Army will continue its food distribution on Fridays, and Food Angels will hand out food at R.O. Hardin Elementary School on Saturdays.
“Maria has been generous enough to let us use their facility,” Lampe said. “It is a good relationship, but we will be running things as separate entities. They are not funding us, and we will still rely on people’s generosity to continue our work.”
Lampe said she expects the transition to be seamless and that many of those who rely on her might not notice a difference.
“We will be able to care for the same number of people,” Lampe said. “It just won’t be in the same way.”
After years of street ministry in other cities, Linda and Patrick Lampe have been feeding the hungry of Hollister since moving there in 2001.
“When I first came here, I thought, ‘What a beautiful town,’” she said, “And yet when I began to look around, I saw all the need. When you have rural homelessness, like people living under bridges, it’s not so evident.”
The Lampes began taking food to areas where the homeless gathered, stocking up on drive-through Jack in the Box tacos—two for a dollar—and ordering 300 at a time. Growing up with a mother who could stretch the family’s food budget, she realized she could do better by cooking the food herself.
“We could buy food at the pantry for 12 cents a pound,” she said, “We would load up a barbecue grill and go to the camps, cooking for the people there.”
In 2015, Lampe opened Our Father’s House in the basement of the original Hazel Hawkins Hospital building at 910 Monterey Street. The operation was self-funded then, as now, and offered the homeless hot meals, clean clothes, internet access, a place to receive mail, classes, counseling and a chapel.
Structural issues with the building forced Lampe to move to the Worth Saving location six years ago. When COVID hit, she began working with Martha’s Kitchen, which currently provides 230,000 meals monthly to those in need throughout San Jose and Watsonville.
“They would bring us these nice big trays of food that serve up to 30,” Lampe said. “We were able to expand with that. We would add salad and dessert to ensure a good nutritional meal. I think our food would stand to compare with many restaurants in town.”
Lampe’s assistance has always been given with no questions asked. She said that, besides lack of money, three things work to create food insecurity: fear, shame and pride.
“Fear among the undocumented that seeking help might lead to their deportation,” Lampe said. “Shame because they never had to ask for help before. And pride because even though you work every day, you may not make enough to put food on the table.”
Martha’s Kitchen Executive Director Bill Lee said he was committed to working with the Food Angels to support them at their new location. He described Lampe as a “beacon of hope” for those without a voice or resources.
“Nobody is as deeply knowledgeable about the people they serve as Linda,” he said. “She’s always incredibly sweet and so incredibly concerned. I know this move terrifies her because she doesn’t want to leave anybody unserved.”
Lampe said that, while she is happy the Food Angels will continue, she will miss her direct contact with those who come to Worth Saving for help.
“I feel like a mother abandoning her children,” Lampe said, “because Hollister needs a downtown presence for people to go to for help. But I feel love. I feel support. And we’ve got more blessings than we have blame.”
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