The Faith Community Church helped feed and clothe those in need at its “Festividad for Christ” event on Saturday, as more than 200 families attended.
Event organizers said the church was used to welcoming much more to the event before the pandemic, but even at a reduced scale the number of people they helped wasn’t the point – it was helping as many as possible.
“Even if we have only five families, we’re able to help five families, it’s worth it,” said Becky Metcalf, organizer for the Festividad. “I mean, we expect a lot more than that. But again, if you only had five, that’s five families we were able to help and that’s so worth every moment.”
While the goal of the church is to ultimately spread the gospel, Miguel Bocanegra, pastor at Faith Community, said that a person’s creed of choice is not a concern when it comes to giving back.
“On a regular basis, our focus here is to preach the gospel to you know, tell people about the Bible, but knowing that other people may have a different faith – that’s not the most important thing for us right now, but [rather] to have gifts for the kids, have a meal in the community,” said Bocanegra.
In addition to a free catered meal, the Festividad also offered free wrapped gifts for children up to age 13 (as well as a gift for the whole family), clothing for those who needed it and a petting zoo with goats, sheep, a pig and an alpaca.
“This is why we exist as a church. We want to bless other people,” said Steve Jackson, head pastor at Faith Community. “What better way to do that and then bring some hopefully joy and love into the lives of our neighbors here in Newhall. That’s gonna bring us as much joy as the families that are getting blessed today. We love doing this. We’ve been doing this for a long time and every year it never gets old.”
Event organizers hope that next year they may be able to help more families as they have in years past – with their largest pre-pandemic Festividad hosting more than 1,000 families.
