Service Saturday

One of our co-workers mentioned to us that she volunteers to feed the homeless at her church on Saturday mornings. Laura and I had been looking for a way to help others out in the city and figured this would be perfect! After having to re-route our journey to the church  we finally arrived at The Most Holy Redeemer Church in East Village.

 The church has been feeding the homeless in the area for the past ten years. Our co-worker’s mom and aunt started the program when they saw an increase in homeless people asking for food during the winters. They used to serve the meals in the church, but it got a bit out of control a couple of times so now they just pack warm meals and pass them out at noon on Saturdays. Every Saturday morning between November and April about ten to fifteen women show up around 8 am to the basement of the church to start cooking. They usually make a salad, dessert, pasta, rice, veggies, sandwiches, soup, and some kind of meat. It all looked delicious today! 

 Everyone does small tasks with the different foods until 11 and then we begin to package the cold food in the to-go boxes. Today at around 11:30 people were lined up outside the church and by 11:45 the line was wrapped around the corner of 1^st avenue. At 12 pm all the volunteers say a prayer and then the assembly line begins to package all of the meals. It is SUPER quick. Around 150 meals were thrown together in about 20 minutes today! That’s a great supply chain if you ask me! Kiker helped pack the salad and I threw the sandwiches in the boxes and closed them for Randy to take outside. While we weren't able to hand out the meals, I certainly saw the long line from the basement window.

While we were preparing the food today, we met WONDERFUL people that helped prepare the meals. There was Carol, the magnificent cook, who had been the soup chef for the past three years. She taught me all sorts of things about cooking! 

Maria, who loved conversing with Kiker in Spanish. Bill, who had worked in construction in the city for 25 years and told us about the unbearable cold up as he built a 100-floor building with no protection from the wind. He was cool…he helped build Trump Tower and the AOL building! (Kiker is going to try & apply for an internship with Trump now…)Margaret was also one of the founders of the program and kept a tight ship on the cooking. Tamara seemed to take pictures of Laura and I the whole time and also found it necessary to shout “Hott stuff coming through” whenever Laura walked into the kitchen. 

There were also lots of other women who talked about the different things to cook next week and one in particular who lectured to Laura and I about cell phones and texting. The funny part was that she said had a cell phone only for her son to call her and pick her up. Other than that, she turns it off. Her husband doesn’t even know she has one and constantly begs her to get one. She also mentioned that women should never give a man their number, cause they won’t stop calling. Looks like Kiker will have major problems considering she has been passing out her business cards left and right in the city.

 Overall we found it a great way to start off our weekend! It was really great to meet so many generous people and felt great to help out those in need. We look forward to more Saturday mornings spent at the Most Holy Redeemer!