A little warmth: Family donates clothing to anyone who needs it
Jackie Rice stands in the back of the large truck she and husband Cal operate as part of Rice Bowl Ministries, which serves the poor and the shelterless in and around Moses Lake by giving out free clothes.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald
MOSES LAKE — Love. That’s what makes Cal Rice and his wife Jackie drive out with a big truck full of clothes to give away to whomever needs them.
“We had a big homeless ministry on the other side of the mountains and then we moved here six years ago, and we started over again,” Cal said.
“We’re just trying to love on people and give them something they need,” he added.
That something is clothing — shirts, coats, pants, underwear, socks, even a few shoes and some hats — as well as blankets and sleeping bags, to the shelterless and the poor. And to anyone who stopped by the Rices’ truck recently parked on a gravel lot at the corner of Third Avenue and Cedar Street.
“A little bit of everything,” Jackie said.
Cal and Jackie, and Cal’s daughter Verree, are at that corner every second and fourth Thursday of the month, saying hello and helping people find things they need. Affiliated with The King’s Tabernacle church (3843 Denton Road NE) in Moses Lake, they run Rice Bowl Ministries out of a large truck and a rented 30-by-40-foot storage space near the old Larson Air Force Base.
It’s all about helping people meet Jesus by meeting their needs, Cal said.
The truck and the storage space are a start, Cal added, though what he’d really like to do is find a space and open up a soup kitchen — which is where the word bowl comes from in the ministry name — and have a permanent, public place to do his outreach.
“We could bring people, have all our clothes there instead of in storage, where we could just love on people on a regular basis,” he said.
In addition to being at the corner of Third Avenue and Cedar Street, Jackie said they also work with Serve Moses Lake, visit the homeless shelter and hope to set up shop from time to time in some of the surrounding towns.
“We just haven’t figured out where yet,” she said. “But we’ll be around.”
For more information on Rice Bowl Ministries, or to make a donation, contact Cal Rice at 360-708-8344.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.