Lafayette church's soup kitchen meets need

(This story is reprinted, with permission from the News-Register newspaper of McMinnville.)

By LOUISE ROSE

LAFAYETTE -- Dinner’s served from 4 to 6 Tuesday evenings in the Lafayette Community Center. You can’t make reservations, but they’re sure to find a table for you.

Don’t bother bringing your wallet -- it's all free. The Lafayette Community Church soup kitchen serves hot meals to 30 to 50 people a week in the community center, at the corner of Second and Adams streets.

“There’s no charge, even if you’re a millionaire,” a soup kitchen volunteer emphasized. “We just want to share.”

Marsha Martin and Milly Dunwoody have been here since 2 o’clock in the afternoon, cooking sloppy joes. On any given Tuesday, the steaming pots in the little kitchen may hold hearty soup, like chicken and noodle -- among the favorites of regular patrons.

Meals are served with bread donated by area grocers. There’s always dessert, too.

If you live in Lafayette or you’ve dropped in before, you'll probably be greeted by name when you return. A mother with five small children comes in from the cold, a little hesitantly. They’ve been invited several times by a neighbor, but this is their first time to accept the invitation.

The children are helped into chairs and heaping plates of food are quickly delivered by smiling volunteers, who also stop to coo and admire the baby. As other guests arrive, they, too, are greeted warmly, invited to the tables and served their meals.

“It’s nice to see families come in,” a volunteer said. “Those of us who have raised kids know how nice it is to have a day when you don’t have to worry about what to cook for dinner.”

The Lafayette Com-munity Church will mark its second anniversary this spring and recently dedicated a new sanctuary. But the congregation has done more than look to its own needs in the less than two years since it was founded.

Sally Peterson, whose husband, the Rev. Jim Peterson, is pastor of the church, said she and another church member started the soup kitchen because they wanted to do something that would make a difference in people’s lives.

“When we talked at church about our hopes to do this, we had a lot of people step up and want to help,” she said.

The soup kitchen volunteers clearly feel a need to give, as much or maybe even more than their community needs to receive.

“It's not a matter of needy people,” Peterson said. “If people need the food, that's great, but even if they aren't needy we are happy to have them come. It gives us a chance to serve and see with our own eyes that we are making a difference.

“We hope people will feel the love of Christ through receiving the food and know that they are part of a caring community.”

In addition to the helpers from Lafayette, church youth groups from Amity and Dayton also volunteer on a regular basis.

The majority of patrons are ages 35 to 50, but there are also quite a few children and elderly people who come for dinner. Soup kitchen volunteers are happy to see elderly citizens come in for the weekly meals.

“It’s hard to cook for just one, and not much fun to eat alone. I worry that some folks just don't bother to eat some nights,” a volunteer said.

Thomas Saraceni has been a regular patron at the soup kitchen for several months. He chats amiably with others at his table as they eat. He said he thought he would be in town only temporarily when his motorhome broke down. But experiences like Tuesday nights at the soup kitchen have changed his mind about traveling on down the road.

“I've been in Oregon 40 years and I’ve been in Lafayette since Oct. 11, when my motorhome broke down," Saraceni said. “At first I stayed because I was waiting to get it repaired. But people have been so friendly. They invited me to church. There are a lot of good people and it’s a nice town. I’ve decided to make Lafayette my home.”

Saraceni said he cooks for himself most nights, but the Tuesday night gatherings are fun for him.

Dunwoody said she enjoys meeting people and also loves to cook. She gets to do both by working frequently at the soup kitchen.

“People will sit and talk for a long time,” she said, “and we really enjoy seeing that.”

The program is suppoted by donations from church and community members. Grocers sometimes donate food, like the bread that comes every week from McMinnville-area grocery stores. The Lafayette Community Action Team coordinates a bread giveaway on Monday afternoons in the community center.

Even though people take heaping sacks of baked goods home on Mondays, there’s usually plenty left for use in the soup kitchen. In fact, soup kitchen volunteers often send their patrons home with packaged bread, rolls, and sometimes pies, cakes, muffins and sweet rolls, to keep thefood from being wasted.

“We can usually feed everyone for about $40 a week, but that’s usually augmented by donations of food,” Martin said.

As attendance increases, the soup kitchen could use additional help to get through lean times or pay for special treats. Call the church at 503-864-8409.