Nearly two years after its pandemic-induced founding, Adam’s Angels continues to serve those in need in a multitude of ways. The effort began right after lockdown, when Realtor Adam McKaig posted an offer on Facebook to shop for elderly people in need. When requests for assistance, as well as offers to help, poured in, McKaig quickly formed an amazing group of volunteers, whose members shopped from Goleta to Oxnard to fill requests.
The demographic served quickly grew beyond the elderly to the unsheltered, low-income residents, and others in need. The group continues in full force today with 75 core volunteers and about 300 more occasional ones. It just grew organically, according to McKaig, without any promotion — the community just came together. The group has no religious affiliation, but leaders from many faiths are among the core volunteers.
McKaig, raised in Santa Barbara with an ethos to serve others, kept learning of more needs, and he and his Angels jumped in to serve. The Foodbank of S.B. County needed volunteers to make home deliveries — the Angels signed up. One day, Congregation B’nai B’rith asked McKaig to deliver clothes to a woman on the S.B. County Courthouse steps, and, in searching for the woman, McKaig discovered many others sleeping under eaves and between bushes. With the pandemic causing entities serving the unsheltered to pull back, McKaig related, he saw a tremendous need to serve these individuals, many of whom did not understand the pandemic and its implications.