“TONIGHT’S MEAL WOULD HAVE BEEN FRUIT AND MILK BEFORE YOU ARRIVED”
Eight weeks into the launch of one of our Parish’s most challenging ministries shows encouraging signs that this initiative is here to stay. Several goals established early on for the “Kitchen of Hope Monday Meals” ministry have already been achieved.
- Some 220 parish volunteers have registered in the ministry database to ensure that 57 volunteers are on hand every Monday to prepare, package and deliver three-course hot meals to South County residents grappling with food insecurity.
- These 57 volunteers break into small groups to take on 12 specific roles along the food assembly line, from kitchen food preparation and assembling and filling the hot meal containers to food deliveries and kitchen clean-up crews.
- In the first week, 227 meals were prepared and delivered; by week eight (Memorial Day Weekend), 261 meals were distributed, an indication word is spreading about the ministry’s work and impact.
- At the end of each Monday’s workday, 13 drivers load up their vehicles and are dispersed to seven area communities, including Kingston, Wakefield, West Kingston, South Kingstown, Narragansett, Snug Harbor and Charlestown.
This past Monday, this Pulse writer accompanied one of these 13 drivers, parishioner Chris Camp, during his travels to deliver these three-course hot meals to seven Wakefield households. Several food recipients responded to our only question: “Is this ministry of help to you?”
A father and his two sons greeted us at the door. His response, “Without your help, tonight’s dinner hour would come and gone without any dinner. What else can I say.”
A former chef of 30 years who had to give up her career due to impaired eyesight commented that “tonight’s meal would have been fruit and milk before you arrived.”
An elderly couple in their eighties were already waiting for us on their outdoor porch. “How can we go wrong with these weekly surprises; I wish I could make a donation but every day there is always something we have to deal with.”
Ministry leader, John O’Gorman noted that “this kind of feedback from our recipient families will reinforce the contributions our parish volunteers are making. Their commitment and weekly turnout has been nothing short of amazing. Every volunteer feels the responsibility to ensure the meal, when opened, is as appealing to the recipient family as if the meal was prepared for the volunteers’ own table.”
The other key factor underlying the early success of this ministry? “The partnership with the Kitchen of Hope and St Francis parishioners has been so supportive, transferring knowledge to us from their five years of experience with their own Friday Meals initiative,” John points out. “Our parish’s $25,000 donation to the Kitchen of Hope has been an invaluable and intentional investment to support our food insecure neighbors.”
For more information about The Kitchen of Hope, or to find out how you can be involved, please contact John O’Gorman: jogorman.jogfoodbasketministry@gmail.com.