Food Drive for Families in Dulce, New Mexico

Update 7/16/25: WOW, thank you so much everyone for helping our coalition reach our goal of $5000!! Thanks to all of you we can continue to provide food, including perishables such as milk, eggs, cheese and bread, to our families with school-aged children in our community. We also had many people donate non-perishables here at our food pantry at the JCFEC portable building in Dulce. As of today, we have served 57 children (and 17 families) in the last two weeks. THANK YOU AGAIN! We have another 3 weeks left of summer, and we will continue to move towards our goal of serving 30 families. I will post some pictures as well. Thanks again!!

--Yolandra Gomez

The Jicarilla Food and Nutrition Coalition based in Dulce, New Mexico, and affiliated with the Tribal Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program, is raising funds to buy food for families with children in need this summer in our community. Our goal is to provide food boxes weekly for at least 30 families who rely on summer school lunches that for several reasons was discontinued this year. We started our food drive on June 30th, 2025, with drop-off locations at our community coalition partner sites including the Jicarilla Supermarket, Fitness Center, Indian Health Service Clinic, Child & Family Education Center, St. Francis School, and the Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board. Our partners also helped us immediately identify families in need and since then we have served 7 families that included 29 children total! We are grateful for the support we have received so far. Your monetary donations will allow us to purchase more food including perishables such as milk and eggs that are difficult to store in our pantry. Any amount will go a long way in making this possible!

The Jicarilla Home Visiting staff responsible for this drive includes Michelle Gomez, RN, our Community Outreach Coordinator and Yolandra Gomez, MD, MPH, a local pediatrician who is the current project manager. All funds will go directly towards the purchase of food for our families. Our goal is to make these food boxes available to any family who need extra support regardless of income status.

Thank you for considering donating!

7/14/25: Just a quick note to thank everyone who has donated so far!! We really appreciate it! This week, our coalition will evaluate our current pantry, identify families who need a boxes, either new families or ones we have given to already. We'll post some pictures soon! --Dr. Gomez