SPARKS Volunteers

The great SPARKS volunteers who helped us today, Jack, Sadie, Robyn (camp director) and Brooklyn.

We were fortunate to have the help of teens attending Trinity Episcopal Cathedral's SPARKS Community Service Camp at today's Wednesday Community Meal. This is the fourth year the campers have volunteered with us and as always, it was a wonderful experience. 

The campers were enthusiastic about helping and got right to work, serving in the dining room. They did a great job and also enjoyed lunch alongside our guests.

We served 305 meals today and had a full dining room for most of our two-hour service.  We changed our menu multiple time to utilize food gleaned from Good Samaritan Hospital, Phil's Uptown Meat Market, The Oregon Food Bank, Pizza Schmizza, Baker & Spice, Ken's Artisan Bakery, Grand Central Bakery and Starbucks.

The first guests got frittata, then there was enchilada casserole, beef stir fry, hot turkey and cheese sandwiches, beef curry and finally pizza. We had the perfect amount of food, just enough for everyone who joined us. 

An enchilada lunch.

A beef curry lunch.

SPARKS Volunteers

SPARKS Campers Julia and Ella eating lunch with our guests.

Today at the Wednesday Community Meal we had the help of middle schoolers from the SPARKS Summer Service in the City Camp that's held every summer at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. The camp is held for two weeks and on each day, they volunteer at a different service organization in our community.

This is the fourth year that the campers have volunteered at the Wednesday Community Meal and as always it was a real pleasure meeting them and having their help. In addition to working, they also ate lunch alongside our guests, getting to know the wonderful people we serve.

Many of our regular volunteers also helped today by acting as mentors to the campers. Working together we served 363 meals.

High School volunteer Sarah worked alongside the middle schoolers in the dining room.

And regular summer volunteers Ava and Eleanor had a blast working alongside Jack. They dished up lots and lots of ice cream for dessert.

SPARKS camper Niko was on drink pouring duty in the kitchen.

Julia and Ella served meals in the dining room.

Brigit and Fiona worked very hard carrying tubs of dirty dishes to the dishwashers. They really worked nonstop and helped the dishwashers get done in record time.

With all the help from Brigit and Fiona, Bill had time to resort to his favorite method of cleaning the bottom of an ice cream tub.