Soup Kitchen

Rounding out our great weekend, Jane and I filled a church assignment to help out at a Denver-area soup kitchen after church. The kitchen feeds homeless people at a down town college campus every two weeks, and is run by a local synagog. There were about 150 homeless people that were fed, and the meal was actually quite good. Dinner was a chicken enchilada casserole with rice, veggies, green salad, and a brownie. The people were also given a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and cookies and pretzels in a baggie to take with them. What I liked about the way this was run was that the portions were very generous, and people could come back for seconds, plus they had a supply of empty margarine tubs and other snap lid containers so that people could take food with them for another meal later. One of the guys in the line told us the containers were for food for him to eat at work during lunch the next day. Some of the people were obviously homeless, but many looked just like normal folks; clean, neatly dressed, well spoken. On one hand its sad to think that nice, normal people couldn't make enough money to eat at home; on the other hand I'm really glad that there was a place they could get a big meal for free. At least one or two looked like college students.

For our assignment, Jane passed out the sandwiches, and served the casserole. Jane was really in her element; at her spot at the head of the line, she chatted up everyone and made them feel welcome and treated them in a friendly, respectful way. In other words, she noticed them individually and loved them for a few seconds. Her favorite moment? As we were packing up, a guy walked up, and because some of the treats were gone, one homeless guy came over and offered to share his treats with the guy that came late.


Most of the folks that we feed sit down on the grass or up against nearby buildings.