At Mosaic Ministries, helping people ‘gather for the winter’ starts with a Thanksgiving turkey giveaway
And you think you had a crowd for Thanksgiving dinner.
At Mosaic Inter-Faith Ministries in South Salt Lake, they fed 6,000 people, give or take.
Not all at once. Or on the actual Thanksgiving Day, for that matter.
This past Tuesday morning, two days before the holiday, Rev. Dr. Leslie Whited and her trusty band of staff workers and volunteers handed out some 700 dinner boxes, complete with turkeys and all the trimmings.
Since each dinner, on average, would serve nine people, that meant the food distributed from Mosaic’s front porch was enough to feed the entire population of a small city like, say, Midway, or West Bountiful.
For years, the ministry has been giving away these turkey dinners a few days before Thanksgiving. This year, the demand was exceptionally high, and not just because of the holiday.
“People are really stretched beyond their means right now with high prices on housing, food and gas,” says Dr. Whited. “There’s such a huge need out there. You’d be surprised the families that come to our food bank; they are your neighbors, your friends, your relatives.”
Mosaic Inter-Faith turns no one away. It is one of those Good Samaritan kinds of places that hide in plain sight in our cities and towns and fill in the cracks.
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The charity was just two years old in 1997 when the Rev. Whited came aboard. The organization was known as Lutheran Social Service of Utah at the time. But over time, as support came in from other churches, foundations and government entities, the name and affiliation was changed to Mosaic Inter-Faith Ministries.
“This is not a church, there is no proselytizing,” says Dr. Whited, “it is a collective that serves 13 or more religions every day — LDS, Pentecostal, spiritual but not religious, Muslim, Buddhist, and on and on. You’ll see every part of Utah here, every diversity you can name, from sixth-generation Utahns to somebody who’s been in Utah six days. The same goes for our board.
“We’re lucky to receive some government assistance,” she adds, “but honestly it’s Utah foundations and donors that do the lions’ share to keep us running.”
Dr. Whited does her part and then some. When she arrived, the charity had just one program, senior outreach, that served 40 people. In 2023, Mosaic Ministries serves 500 to 600 families a week with food, clothing, bedding, health and employment education, and other basics of life.
“I’ve been here 26 years, I can’t believe that much time has gone by but it has,” says Dr. Whited. Raised mostly in Utah, she comes from a family with deep Utah roots. But after graduating from Orem High School, she left to attend college at Loyola of Chicago, then stayed in Chicago for ministry school. She first became a reverend, then continued on to attain her doctor of ministry degree. It’s why she’s a reverend and a doctor, and why most everyone calls her Dr. Whited.
For 18 years, she served at ministries in a variety of states, including Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Illinois, before returning home to spend more time with her aging grandparents. That’s when she heard about the small charity in Bountiful that needed leadership.
Her name is first on the Mosaic letterhead and she is listed on the website as CEO, but Dr. Whited insists she is just a small part of a much bigger wheel, or mosaic.
“Honestly, it’s always been a group of people who work together really hard,” she says. “Other folks have been here a long time as well and we truly do run it like a collective, everybody runs their own function.”
It’s not the poverty and need that surrounds her daily that keeps her at Mosaic, she says. It’s watching what happens when people in poverty and need get a hand up.
“I have seen so many people get their first home, see their children grow and marry and prosper, see immigration stories that start out hard and then get a little easier. You see what can happen if people just get a little support.”
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Thanksgiving, of course, is just one day, and Thanksgiving dinner just one meal. Tuesday’s turkey dinner handout was just the start of Mosaic Give-A-Way days that extend through the holidays. Every Thursday through Dec. 14 will be special Winter Food Give-A-Ways. On Tuesday, Dec. 5, they’ll hold a Toy Bag Give-A-Way and on Dec. 6, a Deseret Industries Voucher Give-A-Way. All this, in addition to their regular food bank and ministering work.
No registration or paperwork is required for the Give-A-Ways. Just show up after 8 a.m. at the Mosaic headquarters at 3278 South, 540 East in South Salt Lake (lssu.org).
“We try to do enough so people can gather for the winter,” says Dr. Whited.
Mosaic’s longtime CEO says she has no timetable for retiring from a place she’s given half her adult life to, adding, “I don’t look back on a day that wasn’t rewarding.”
Asked if it’s working at Mosaic Ministries that has made her wealthy, without missing a beat she smiles and answers, “In all the ways that matter.”
