Mill Creek Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

Updated 4/11/20 – Venture Church will also be giving away nonperishable groceries Monday, April 13, at 1 p.m. The church has received a semi-truck load of food from global relief organization, Convoy of Hope. The food was originally planned for a charity event, but the event was canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic. Now Venture Church in Mill Creek and Life Church 360 in Arlington will be giving the groceries away to people in need. Anyone can go to Venture Church Monday to get a free bag of groceries or to Life Church in Arlington the following week.

The Dream Dinners Foundation donated over 5,000 meals to Venture Church in Mill Creek to give to people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

People came to the church and volunteers put the meals in the trunk of the car. Each meal was enough to feed six people and the church gave away nearly 4,000 of them already.

"It is exciting to me that community, business, and the church have all partnered together to serve our region in this challenging time," Brandon Beals, a pastor at Venture Church said. Venture Church was formerly known as Canyon Creek Church.

Beals said there are still about 1,000 meals available if anyone is still in need. People can contact the church or Nicole Butcher ([email protected]) to set up time for pickup.

The Dream Dinners Foundation donated the food and students from Snohomish High School put together the prepackaged meals. 

Tina Kuna, the founder, and CEO of Dream Dinners said the meals are a combination of rice, lentils, dried vegetables and come with a vitamin pack. They are also non-perishable.

"We had it for lunch the other day to test it out," Kuna said. "You can add your own individual spices, and they're incredibly healthy. (The meals were) good just the way they were, or you use it as a soup base as well." There are recipes provided with the meals, she said.

The Dream Dinners Foundation started in 2005 as the giving arm of Dream Dinners. Kuna said that she had heard of a woman whose husband was in the final stages of cancer, so she sent meals to her so she didn't have to worry about dinner. A month later, the woman sent her a check for $50 in the mail and asked Kuna to pay it forward.

"So I sat there and cried (reading the letter) and always felt from that moment we wanted to provide some sort of a foundation where we could do more things like that."

The Dream Dinners Foundation has donated over 16 million meals worldwide, and at home in the United States. The meals given to Venture Church were originally supposed to be distributed during a Convoy of Hope event, but after it was canceled, the meals were given to local organizations in Snohomish County.

"It was perfect timing that we had these meals and we could provide them. This is what my company is based on and what we're made to do – help families get dinner on the table."

Venture Church will also be collecting unused masks, gloves, gowns, and face shields to give to nursing homes and hospitals Saturday, April 4, from 10 a.m. to noon. The church will collect the items and then give them to Vital Solutions, a Seattle nonprofit that provides medical care in Kenya that is now collecting supplies for local hospitals.

Venture Church (Mill Creek campus)

14616 35th Ave SE

Mill Creek, WA 98012