Helping Wherever Needed

Bill who is one of our dedicated dishwashers really helped us out today by also serving meals in the dining room.

It just happened that four of our regular dining room volunteers weren't able to help today at the Wednesday Community Meal and we were seriously short-handed, particularly at the start when we had 10 tables full of guests waiting to be served.

Well, I know I've said it before but it takes team effort to feed the masses and we might of had a small team today but it was a great team.

Every volunteer pitched in to help wherever needed, often multitasking. Our super dishwashers in particular came to the rescue, serving in the dining room when we needed the extra help. Thank you Bill, Kevin, Jay, Steve and Dave!

We served 255 meals today and received this sweet compliment from a guest who told volunteer Cheryl, "That was the best meal I've had since last Wednesday." So sweet and why the Wednesday Community Meal is worth the work, no matter the circumstances.

Today's Meal: Pork Loin, Rice with Sauteed Kale, Roasted Zucchini and Carrots and Honeydew Melon. Trinity purchased the pork loin, the rice was donated by Good Samaritan Hospital, the kale was donated by Spring Hill Organic Farm and the carrots and zucchini came from The Oregon Food Bank.

Extra Special Salads

Today's salad.

The salads we served today at the Wednesday Community Meal were extra special thanks to some donated gourmet ingredients.

In the salads from Spring Hill Organic Farm we had garden fresh frisee, leaf lettuce and oak leaf lettuce. The Albany, Oregon based farm is so generous and donates weekly from June to September when they are at the Portland Farmer's Market. Spring Hill also gave us bunches of chard that we sauteed and added to rice for a colorful and healthy side dish.

Fresh greens from Spring Hill Organic Farm

To top the salads we had pomegranate seeds donated from Trader Joe's and slices of Trader Joe's Brie  that we picked up at The Oregon Food Bank. The salads were simply beautiful and it was a pleasure being able to serve them to our guests.

A case of Trader Joe's Brie that came from The Oregon Food Bank.

Pomegranate seeds donated from the neighborhood Trader Joe's on NW Glisan.

We served 261 meals today and had to change our entree menu multiple times to utilize the food we gleaned from Good Samaritan Hospital this week as well as the food we had on hand in our freezer.

One of the 261 meals we served today.

Every week we just try our hardest use what we have and serve the best meal possible. It's work, but joyful work, and especially so when we hear nice comments from the guests like this one that was told to one of our servers today:

"Thank you...The lunch was great, everything is great! The atmosphere is wonderful. I finally feel like a human being again."

Why We Work

Cheryl with fresh fruit cups of honeydew from The Oregon Food Bank and beautiful strawberries donated from Shannon who works at Trinity.

It's not easy cooking and serving food to an unknown number of people every week at the Wednesday Community Meal at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.

And, we don't even know the majority of what ingredients we will have to work with until Tuesday afternoon since most of the food is gleaned the day before the meal from generous businesses like Food Front Cooperative Grocery in Hillsdale, Spring Hill Organic Farm in Albany, Good Samaritan Hospital, Phil's Uptown Meat Market, Grand Central Bakery, Pizza Schmizza, Baker & Spice and Starbucks.

We also weekly "shop the dock" at The Oregon Food Bank, looking for free items we can use. Every week is a surprise.

But despite this, the work is rewarding and something I and the other volunteers love.  I've even heard my friend Bill who volunteers each week to wash dishes say "it's the highlight of my week." Now that's saying something.

What makes the work rewarding is that the volunteers are the nicest people and the guests are lovely and appreciative.

My friend Cheryl who oversees the dining room volunteers shared these stories from today:

A male guest told volunteer Dorrie that he "hadn't eaten in two days" and was so hungry and really looking forward to the meal.

Another male guest told Dorrie "this is such a wonderful place," and then enthusiastically said "let the feast begin."

And volunteer Jan who was stationed at the exit door, said one man said as he was leaving that he was so happy because "it's my birthday today and I got all of my favorite foods."  That would be homemade pigs 'n' a blanket and ribs from Phil's Uptown Meat Market.

We served 296 meals today.

We made pigs 'n' a blanket today with Hebrew National Hotdogs and homemade dough that we spiked with chunks of cheese. The guests loved it.

What a treat!

A Busy Fifth Wednesday

Our team of color coordinated super servers. It was just a fluke that they all came dressed in shades of violet today.

The Wednesday Community Meal usually sees a spike in the number of guests we serve towards the end of the month so we knew we would be busy today with it being a rare fifth Wednesday. And, we were right. The line of guests waiting for our doors to open looped around the block.

We served 397 meals today and needed every single one of our amazing kitchen and dining room volunteers. The first guests in the door were treated to oven roasted chicken, rice, sauteed kale and watermelon along with soup, salad and dessert.

A meal of roasted chicken, rice, kale and watermelon.

Crisp green salads made with produce donated by Spring Hill Organic Farm in Albany, Food Front Cooperative Grocery in Hillsdale and longtime volunteer Kate.

A scene from today's busy kitchen. There would be no meal without our dedicated volunteers.

Volunteer Sierra cutting onions that came from The Oregon Food Bank. Working on her own, she cut 15 pounds of onions and didn't cry once thanks to a trick I had never heard of until today. She held a spoon in her mouth as she worked. She told me she learned of the trick from a teacher at school.

An Early 4th of July Celebration

We celebrated the 4th of July a day early at the Wednesday Community Meal by serving all-beef Costco hotdogs, crispy roasted potatoes, green salad, soup, watermelon and ice cream sundaes.

Volunteer Quinn making ice cream sundaes for our guests.

On the actual 4th, many food agencies in our city our closed so we wanted to make sure our guests today left very satisfied. With extra help from some young volunteers who are on summer break, we served 237 meals during our two hour service from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

My sweet niece Maya helped me season the potatoes before roasting. It took a lot of time and effort cleaning and dicing 300 pounds of potatoes from The Oregon Food Bank. Thank you Mary, Leah, Sierra and Ann!

Trinity Episcopal Cathedral provided the hot dogs, buns, watermelon and ice cream. The potatoes came from the Oregon Food Bank and the salad ingredients were donated by Spring Hill Organic Farm in Albany and Food Front Grocery Cooperative in Hillsdale. The soup was donated by Good Samaritan Hospital. We were worried that the soup wouldn't be popular because of the heat but we were wrong. Our guests were hungry and appreciative of everything we offered.

We always try our best to accommodate our guests' dietary needs. For vegetarians we served potatoes, watermelon, stir fried kale and oven roasted asparagus, squash and cauliflower.

Last Community Meal Of 2012

Santa Claus? Or is it longtime volunteer Dan? Whoever it is, he worked very hard serving coffee, tea and hot chocolate and made our guests smile.

Today was our last Wednesday Community Meal of 2012.
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral will be closed the Wednesday after Christmas so the next service will be on January 2, 2013.

It's been a busy year at the Wednesday Community Meal. Every month we've seen the number of meals we serve continue to rise. We've also increased our gleaning to help fight the increase in food costs. Without the support of organizations and businesses like The Oregon Food Bank, Good Samaritian Hospital, Pizza Schmizza, Starbucks, Baker & Spice, Spring Hill Organic Farm, Phil's Meat Market and Grand Central Bakery, we couldn't feed our guests with our limited budget. The gleaning has been a real blessing to our program.

When we started the Wednesday Lunch in 2004, there were just two of us handing out peanut butter sandwiches and if we served 50 we thought that was huge.

In the Spring of 2008 we served our first full-service indoor meal and our numbers were hardly ever over 150 for that first year.

Now, four years later, we regularly serve between 250 and 320 meals each Wednesday. Guest come for the food but I believe they return because of the hospitality. Everyone is welcome and treated with kindness.

Thanks to our wonderful hardworking volunteers, we served 289 meals today.

We had numerous meal changes today. One of the most popular was roasted pork with gravy, asparagus and a baked potato.

With school out for Winter Break, we had extra help from some young volunteers today. Here is high school student Zane stirring a pan of teriyaki chicken.

The meal couldn't go on without our hardworking dishwashers. Longtime volunteer Bill even smiles as he works.

Bread And Croutons

Homemade croutons ready to be toasted in a 400 degree oven.

 At the Wednesday Community Meal we are lucky to receive loafs of crusty artisan bread donated from Grand Central Bakery.

We hand out the loaves to guests and slice it to make sandwiches, toast and homemade croutons.

The homemade croutons are especially popular.

To make them, we toss chunks of the bread in a bit of olive oil and add kosher salt, black pepper, garlic and herbs.  Then we lay the bread on a sheet pan and toast them in a 400 degree oven for 5 to 7 minutes.


Purchased croutons are expensive and filled with preservatives. These croutons are way better and the best part is that we are utilizing old bread.

We served 195 meals today at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and lots of homemade croutons on a salad of fresh greens gleaned from Spring Hill Organic Farm.

A Green Wednesday

Charyl who donated fresh greens from her garden for our Wednesday Community Meal.

We served 287 lunches today at the Wednesday Community Meal and lots of healthy greens thanks to the generosity of Spring Hill Organic Farm and some home gardeners.

On Thursdays from June through September from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., Spring Hill Organic Farm sells at the Northwest Portland Farmer's Market in the parking lot of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral at NW 19th Avenue and NW Everett Street. At the end of each market day the farm donates remaining greens to the Wednesday Community Meal.

These highest quality organic greens are such a treat for our guests and I love being able to serve fresh salads and add kale and chard to soups and other dishes.

We also receive smaller batches of greens from home gardeners who kindly share their bounty. Every single donation makes a difference and is greatly appreciated.