Driver gives thousands of dollars worth of meat to Carpinteria community after store rejects delivery

CARPINTERIA, Calif. – A last-minute improvised act of community service helped feed families and individuals in Carpinteria over the weekend.

More than $20,000 worth of fresh steaks, pork chops and ground meat was handed out at Saint Joseph Church Saturday.

The handout was arranged after a driver making a meat delivery ran into some road blocks.

Rufino Murillo was supposed to deliver the meat to a local market, but it was rejected because the Dec. 11 expiration date was too close for it to be stocked on the shelves.

Murillo didn't want the thousands of pounds of still-good food to go to waste, so he called his wife, who called the church to spread the word.

The church and the church’s chapter of St. Vincent de Paul rounded up volunteers to hand out the meat and reached out to local families in need.

Despite traffic delaying the delivery for more than an hour, a sizeable line was outside when Murillo made it to the church around 2:15 p.m.

Two hours later, all the meat was gone and on its way to feed members of the community. Mike Lee, who shared the story with our newsroom, described the scene as "organized chaos" and called Murillo a good neighbor and a good Samaritan.

Those who stopped by the church were encouraged to take as much as they could to feed their families and give some away to their neighbors.