Since federal immigration enforcement began in December, mutual aid networks have popped up across the state to support immigrant families. A church in south Minneapolis has been a hub for delivering groceries.

DHH church serves primarily Hispanic families. But their community has grown. In total, they’ve delivered 12,000 boxes of groceries over about six weeks. They have more than 20,000 families registered to receive food. MPR News host Nina Moini spoke to Senior Pastor Sergio Amezcua.

NINA MOINI: Pastor, the work you’re doing sounds so just vast and great. Take us inside one day of grocery delivery. What is it like? How are you able to do this?

SERGIO AMEZCUA: Well, we’re doing it by the grace of God and by the help of thousands of volunteers that we have in our network. And this began, just so you know, it began-- I think December 2 was the first day everything began. I told my assistant, hey, with what’s going on here with ICE, families might be afraid of coming out, so let’s just get a sign up sheet in our social media, and maybe we can have 10 families.

So he did it around 11:00. And at 7:00 PM, he called me, Pastor, we had some families registered. Oh, great. How many? I go, 20, 10? He’s like, no, we got 2,000. I’m like, what? Oh my God.

So we started giving 200 boxes, and now, we’re doing an average of 1,300 boxes, which equals 1,300 families daily when we give food. So far, we have close to 14,000 families that we have helped, and we had over 24,000 families registered. They need help. We still have a lot to do.

NINA MOINI: So I understand you have about 400 volunteers a day, in one day, delivering to around 1,500 families. What does it take to get this food? How are you getting all of these? Is it donations?

SERGIO AMEZCUA: Yeah. Well, people donate financially, and we purchase food by the pound, by weight. And we also have other nonprofits bringing food here. And so we’re not only distributing [INAUDIBLE], but we’re also providing food for other nonprofits, like churches or schools.