Good Food But Few Guests

One of today's 216 meals - A pork enchilada, ham, rice and veggies.

We had a large group of energetic volunteers eager to work at today's Wednesday Community Meal but a surprisingly small number of guests. At the end of the two hour service, we'd served only 216 meals. Last Wednesday, the first week of July,  we served 245 and our numbers typically go up each week until the end of the month.

The lulls in today's service actually made me more tired and my fellow kitchen volunteers said the same was true for them. When we're really busy it's easier to keep our energy levels up, especially in the summer heat. Continually stopping and starting is more tiring.

The meal was a success though, we served every person who came to our door a well-rounded and delicious meal. The first guests in the door got ribs from Phil's Uptown Meat Market, rice and vegetables. Then it was onto corned beef, chicken, hot roast beef sandwiches, ham sandwiches, sweet and sour chicken and pork enchiladas.

The corned beef, roast beef and ham were donated by the Oregon Food Bank. They came already cooked and just needed to be sliced and heated for serving. High school volunteers Micah and my nephew Sam took on the task of slicing all the meat and they did a great job. I told them I appreciated their hard  work and that they are now officially qualified to seek work in a deli.

Sam slicing the roast beef.

Olivia whisked up a combo of mayo and mustard to put on the sandwiches.

We also served soup, salad and dessert. The soup was donated from Good Samaritan Hospital, the salads were made from lettuce donated by Springhill Organic Farm and the dessert was delicious cake donated by Trader Joe's.

Linda and Leah plating salads.