As the bright and sunny weather of an unusually warm February day was overcome with the darkness of night and a biting cold wind, Francisco Velez emerged from a shed at the Port Orchard Church of Christ behind the wheel of a shiny red van.

It is easy to see the standout vehicle carries something special. They don’t call it The Mercy Mobile for nothing.

But for those who truly know, those whose living arrangements consist of the backseat of a car or a tarp in the woods, if even that, the van and the large quantity of food donated from various organizations, batteries and other supplies it carries is a game changer.

The spark to start such a mission came from a hot pot of soup one night in November of 2022 when Velez, a retired soldier, was making to feed his family, including a sick son. “I made a big pot of it because, you know, once one of them gets sick, it’s inevitable that they all go down,” he said.

It was such a large pot that Velez and his wife Heather began to wonder what was stopping them from distributing what they could not eat to others. He recounted them making about every excuse in the book not to do so, but the innocent motivations of his kids brought them out of the house that night.

After a trip to 7-11 for some red solo cups, they served soup that night to the homeless, and Velez’s perception of the growing crisis on the streets of Kitsap County changed from then on. “Every instinct that I had to tell people to get a job or whatever faded away really fast when I realized I was dealing with people that have real-world issues, trauma,” he said. “It was hard for me to hear at first, but now that I’ve gotten to know them, I know that a lot of them just wouldn’t make it, at least in their current condition.”

Velez, who had come home from his second trip to Iraq feeling like a soldier without a mission, called the time since that first night of serving soup a heavenly calling from God. He worked for months delivering out of his truck before acquiring The Mercy Mobile, a van with the capacity to bring both the supplies and the helping hands to distribute.

The van “gives us so many more options,” he said. “Christmas time happened, and because we had the van, I was able to go out to the homeless and bring them here, and we had a family meal together.”

A typical night

The load was a little lighter on this particular night, but the hot and fresh meal of chicken and roasted veggies was ready to serve and loaded in the van at 6 p.m. Also packed were water bottles, coffee, a few blankets and several baggies of batteries. “If we know it’s cold, we’re bringing out blankets or we’re bringing out jackets. We load up on that stuff when needed,” Velez said.

The van departed the church with four pairs of helping hands, taking food as far south as the Dairy Queen lot off Bravo Terrace and as far north as the waterfront and downtown of Port Orchard itself. There were plenty of stops in between from big chain hangouts like Walmart and Fred Meyer to searches through common hiding spots off sides of the road. At just about every stop, at least one person left with warm food and drink, and a majority left with a smile they had not worn before the van pulled up.

The stories shared were of real-world problems, not of ignorance or laziness. A trucker of 60-plus years living out of a pickup after he lost all his retirement funding due to company bankruptcy, a couple and their people-person dog living in the woods, a 21-year-old unable to make enough money for a place to live and a man living out of his car after being recently evicted from an apartment that allegedly refused low-income payment assistance.

They are stories of tragedy, and while the goal of getting folks off the streets has been achieved for a few, it is something as simple as a check-in, a prayer and a meal that can make all the difference in the world.

What does it take to get this level of trust, to hear those stories? “Food and time,” Heather answered. “Having something that they want, that they need, helps, but it’s really about time and letting them speak.”

Velez added, “If they feel you’re a trustworthy outlet, they will tell you exactly what’s going on with them.”