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Agency spotlight: Calvary Baptist soup Kitchen
This hot meal along with turkey and ham sandwiches, granola bars, bottles of water, fruit cups, and hard-boiled eggs is loaded into bags and then packed into boxes by volunteers before being loaded into a fleet of vehicles and distributed through downtown Spokane to those in need of a free, hot, nutritious meal.
For close to 11 years, prior to the Covid 19 crisis, the Calvary Baptist Soup Kitchen, part of Spokane’s oldest primarily Black church, served a sit-down full course weekly Saturday lunch at their downtown Spokane location.
One of over 260 meal programs and food pantries that partner with Second Harvest to provide healthy food to those in need in the Inland NW, Calvary Baptist was forced to adapt and change the entirety of how they serve their clients but the spirit of giving, the thoughtful approach, and the emphasis on tasty food remains fully intact despite the pandemic challenges.
Their solution to the public health crisis? Create a mobile, delivery style, to-go soup kitchen.
“When church closed and the soup kitchen closed we prayed for a way to keep feeding the community and this new way became clear,” Dumas says as she bags up snack cookies, her apron emblazoned with the words “You’re Cooking with Big Mama”.
“we get all sorts of variety from Second Harvest and we can feed more people, we can prepare more types of food, hot entrees and snacks. We can do better because of what Second Harvest gives us.”
“Before Covid we could only feed 100 people a week, now we can do much more. A lot of people have mobility issues or don’t feel comfortable coming to the soup kitchen and this new way gets food to them.”
Calvary Baptist Soup Kitchen receives most of their food from a scheduled pick up at the Second Harvest warehouse and based on what produce, protein, shelf stable staples and snacks they receive, a new Saturday menu is created accordingly.
While Second Harvest’s large-scale distributions and mobile markets received a lot of attention during the pandemic that call to action represents just one portion of community impact. Agencies like Calvary Baptist are supplied with regular food orders to fuel their services and provide important hunger relief in communities across the region.
“We get all sorts of variety from Second Harvest and we can feed more people, we can prepare more types of food, hot entrees and snacks.” Dumas said. “We can do better because of what Second Harvest gives us.”
As the morning progresses, Dumas moves around the kitchen, starting new volunteers on tasks, checking on the timing of the food preparation to ensure everything is packaged and ready to go by the time the drivers show up.
After retiring from her career as an elementary school teacher in Spokane for 46 years, Dumas found a place to combine her passions for cooking and helping people at her church’s free community meal program and quickly built a reputation for her delicious soups. “I love cooking, when people come to my house, they’re coming to get some food.” Dumas said.
As the dishes from the cooking are being cleaned, a stream of volunteer drivers pull up and load their vehicles with the food bags. Everyone is cheerful, happy to be helping again, happy to be serving the needy again. Dumas is busy as always but takes time to reflect on how Calvary Baptist has adapted.
“I think this was a blessing that came out of it. We sing a song in church “A Blessing in the Storm” and Covid is our storm, and the blessing is that we can see a way to feed more people now.”
In The Kitchen: Food Waste Prevention Week – April 5
Earth Month is the perfect opportunity to reflect on our habits and how they impact the planet. We might think about how often we drive and take advantage of the nicer weather to bike to work, or maybe even grab some friends and family and find a river cleanup event for Earth Day. But did you know that you can make an impact without even leaving your house? In fact, reflecting on our cooking and grocery shopping habits has the potential to have a greater and long-lasting impact on our environment.
Gonzaga’s Dusty Stromer and Zilch: Teaming up to end hunger – March 29
Dusty Stromer understood from a young age that while his family had enough to eat, others in his circle were not so fortunate. Dusty had a courtside seat to food insecurity — he says that by age 10, he knew some of his friends came from households where food was not reliably available.
A freshman shooting guard on the men’s basketball team at Gonzaga University, Dusty recently got a close look at the fight against hunger by touring Second Harvest’s warehouse and helping to distribute free food through its Zilch program.
Grocery Rescue: Changing lives daily – March 22
Your visit to a local grocery store may seem like a routine, unimportant chore. That perfect strawberry, tomato or apple you select is made possible because different departments of your neighborhood store carefully maintain a standard for each product. But what happens when the banana is too green, or the strawberries are too ripe? That product is stranded and without rescue would find its way to the landfill. Thanks to stores partnering with Second Harvest’s Grocery Rescue program, that nutritious food is shared with partner agencies throughout the 26 counties in Eastern Washington and North Idaho served by Second Harvest.
Feeding Eastern Washington and North Idaho
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