Community Meal celebrates 20 years

Sandpoint's Barbara Blood stirs a pot of her homemade chicken soup in preparation for the weekly Community Meal at the United Methodist Church. This week marks the 20th anniversary of the free meal and her soup has been one of the favorite menu items for that entire time. (Photo by DAVID GUNTER)

SANDPOINT — The weekly Community Meal held each Thursday at United Methodist Church celebrates its 20th anniversary this week. Though not the oldest such gathering in town — St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and the Gardenia Center were both offering free meals when the Methodist congregation served its first dinners on Feb. 13, 1992 — it has always been unique for its approach to what church member Paul Graves calls a “faithful ministry.”

“Way back when we started this, we decided to use the term ‘community meal’ instead of ‘soup kitchen’ so that people knew they were welcome and that they were guests of our congregation,” he said. “It doesn’t have the feel of a sectarian experience. It’s simply a gathering of people that just happens to take place at a church.”  

Alice Vroman recalls the first meals as being filled with heart, if not completely outfitted with the necessary hardware.

“The Gardenia Center had to loan us crock pots for the soup,” she said. “When we first started, there was one man who brought barbecued chicken wings for several years — people in the church were really serious about making this work out.”

One of the hallmarks of the meal is the way in which it is served. At the behest of congregation member Susan Bates-Harbuck, the dinners featured tablecloths and cloth napkins, with volunteers bringing orders to the tables restaurant style.

“We have a sit-down meal with people serving them,” said Vroman, “so they feel that it’s not a soup line they have to stand in.”

For a few years, the meal transitioned to a buffet line format, but the congregation felt it was important to return to the sit-down arrangement. Gerri Harvill, associate pastor at the church since 2009, agreed with that move. After saying a short blessing at the beginning of the meal, she makes the rounds to visit with the diners.

“I try to eat with them and talk with them,” she said. “It’s another way to interact with people and get to know them.”

According to Graves, the ages and income levels of those attending the meal vary greatly.

“It’s pretty much all over the map,” he said. “We see a lot of families with grade school-aged children or teenagers and there are a number of elders there. We have people who live in very comfortable homes sitting next to others who come each week as a way to stretch their grocery budget.”

For the first 15 years or so, the church served an average of 50-60 people every Thursday. With the advent of recent hard economic times, that average climbed and began to include more families.

“Over the past couple of years, we’ve served 60-80 people a week,” Vroman said.

“The number of families we see now is about the same as last year, which was up from we had seen in the past,” added Harvill.

For the lowest-income guests, the hot meal is part of a communitywide network of churches that offer free dinners on weekdays as nourishment for the body. For the lonely, these get-togethers offer food for the soul.

“There are people who are there primarily for the socialization,” Graves said. “For some of them, it may be the only social contact they have all week.”

The social aspect carries over to the people who volunteer to cook and serve the meals, he added, including a church member in his 90s who gets involved in all sides of things.

“He eats there, but he serves there, too,” Graves said. “And sometimes he washes the dishes. He comes faithfully every week.”

Barbara Blood is another church member who has been working at the meal since it started 20 years ago. At that time, when she was in her early 70s, she made a pot of chicken soup for the first dinner. Back each week by popular demand, she has been making a batch of that soup ever since.

Sure enough, last Thursday she was found dressed in a floral blouse and bright red apron, standing over the stove in the church kitchen tending to a steaming pot of chicken soup as other volunteers arranged entrees and desserts for the evening meal. When guests started arriving at 4 p.m., they were greeted with a menu by servers who, according to Harvill, help make this a true community meal.

Many of those volunteers are teens who learn about the opportunity through youth groups. Others have been mandated to show up as part of community service duty. The majority of volunteers just come because they think it’s the right thing to do, such as the Christmas meal last December, when the entire 35-member senior class from Lake Pend Oreille High School cooked and served the dinner.

“It was a great evening,” Harvill said. “They made lasagna from scratch and they were here working all day. Everyone got all dressed up and they all looked so nice.”

The students also brought in and decorated a Christmas tree, had music playing and made miniature Charlie Brown Christmas Tree decorations for every table.

“It really raised the bar for the rest of us when we came back the next week,” the associate pastor said.

The church meal has also been a service vehicle for families living in Habitat for Humanity homes, she added.

“These parents have volunteered as a way to teach their kids about service,” Harvill noted. “The younger the kids, the more enthused they are and the better job they do.”

The associate pastor would like to further expand the volunteer network to include more of those guests who attend the meal, having them take on a kind of role reversal and give back by pitching in.

“The goal is to have those who are now being served start to serve others,” she said. “One of the things I’d like to do is have our guests on Thursdays become the people who help us serve a meal on the weekend.”

With weekdays covered by five local churches, Harvill thinks something along the lines of a Saturday morning breakfast would help bridge the weekend for families and individuals who might otherwise go hungry on those days when meals aren’t available.

“We’re not talking a Mother’s Day buffet here — probably something like muffins, fruit, yoghurt and juice — but it’s food to help get you through the weekend,” she said.

Vroman pointed out that the word “community” has taken on new meaning over the past two decades as area gardeners supply fresh produce, including people who grow food at the recently enlarged Community Garden space adjacent to the Sandpoint Business & Events Center. Litehouse Dressing and other local companies, too, step up with foodstuffs for the meals. Beyond that, members of other churches have joined those who cook and serve the dinners.

“It really has turned into a community effort,” she said.

The United Methodist Church will celebrate two decades of serving the Community Meal on Thursday from 4-6 p.m. at the church.

“I’m very pleased to be part of a congregation that has maintained this kind of ministry for so long,” Graves said. “It speaks to both the tenacity and the compassion of our people.”

The complete schedule for weekly meals is as follows:

• Monday — Assembly of God Church, 4-6 p.m., 423 N. Lincoln. 263-2676

• Tuesday — Seventh Day Adventist Agape Café, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., corner of Pine and Division. 263-0221

• Wednesday – Gardenia Center Rainbow Kitchen, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., corner of Church and Fourth. 263-7625

• Thursday – United Methodist Church, 4-6 p.m., corner of Cedar and Boyer. 263-4232

• Friday – St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, 4-6 p.m., 601 S. Lincoln. 263-3720