Update: Boise homeless shelter donations top $10,000 for weekend pizza, tacos

As of Monday, Interfaith Sanctuary has raised $10,741 for weekend meals for its guests — and is now just $937 shy of its goal of raising enough money to provide guests with taco meals every Sunday of 2019.

Donations can be made online by clicking here.

This is a news update. Here was our previous story from Jan. 15:

A Boise homeless shelter that doesn’t have a kitchen — and is no longer serving homemade food — has found a fun, creative way to provide food to its weekend guests: pizza parties.

Interfaith Sanctuary, currently sheltering a winter overflow of about 184 people each night, including families with children, asked supporters on social media last week to donate money for pizza on Saturday nights.

“How many of you out there would be willing to do a one-time donation of $132.50?” the shelter asked in a Facebook post on Jan. 9. “The donation would cover the cost to provide pizza to all of our guests staying at the shelter on a Saturday night.”

Within four days, the shelter exceeded its goal of raising $6,890 to cover a year’s worth of pizza nights. People continue to contribute to the food fund, which had grown to $8,197 by noon Tuesday.

“Once one person said, ‘I’m in,’ it just kept coming,” Executive Director Jodi Peterson told the Statesman in a phone interview. “They were cheering each other on. They shared it with their friends. People felt good to be involved in this.”

The first pizza night was last Saturday, and it was a hit, Peterson said. The cheese and pepperoni pizza was purchased from Little Caesars, she said. Donors are invited in to the shelter on pizza night.

“I said to all the donors, if you want to come and see the joy you brought to all the guests, just email me,” Peterson said. She said soda and store-bought packaged snacks also could be purchased and donated without a problem.

Peterson said she came up with the idea after shelter staff were recently told that they can serve only meals prepared in a commercial kitchen, to ensure food safety.

The Life’s Kitchen food service training program delivers meals to the shelter during the week, but weekends were largely covered by groups bringing in homemade meals or by shelter volunteers who made sandwiches, Peterson said.

One Sunday each month has been covered through the Sunday Suppers program: Members of Treasure Valley churches prepare a meal for shelter guests in the commercial kitchen at Congregation Ahavath Beth Israel — and that will continue.

But shelter staff are hoping to raise money to cover food for the other Sunday nights each month, which they plan to make a taco night. Shelter staff estimate that each taco night will cost $133.

“Then we don’t have to worry so much about how to get people food safety-trained and into a commercial kitchen to make food for us,” Peterson said. “I want to feed [guests], and I don’t want to feed them peanut butter and jelly.”

Peterson was named executive director last week. For the past two years, she was development director and co-director with Dan Ault, who is the shelter director. They have considered building a kitchen, but they would lose space to shelter about 40 people.

Interfaith Sanctuary was created by community faith leaders in 2005, a rapid response to a need for more winter shelter for the homeless. They initially housed the homeless in churches, then a series of other buildings, before moving into a 10,000-square-foot building at 1620 W. River St. in November 2007.

Donations and business mail to Interfaith Sanctuary should be sent to: P.O. Box 9334, Boise, ID 83707. Email: info@interfaithsanctuary.org

This story was originally published January 15, 2019 at 12:29 PM.