Thank You Good Sam!

One of today's meals courtesy of Good Samaritan Hospital. The slice of watermelon is the only thing on the plate not from the hospital. It came from The Oregon Food Bank.

Good Samaritan Hospital is a longtime partner of The Wednesday Community Meal — Twice a week, volunteer gleaners go to the NW Portland hospital's kitchen to collect leftover and extra food that we can utilize.

Usually it's a few containers of soup, rice and a couple entrees like enchiladas and baked fish, but this past Thursday, the gleaners hit the motherload and came back with more food than ever before. There were six full pans of baked chicken, three large containers of rice pilaf, well over a hundred buttery rolls, pounds and pounds of crisp watermelon chunks and just under 500 mini strawberry tarts.

Knowing the watermelon wouldn't keep nearly a week for today's meal, we handed out the cooling treat the next day to guests who came to Trinity for bags of canned food.  The rest though, we refrigerated or froze and reheated for today's meal.

The baked chicken in an orange sauce was especially good and many guests told us so.

"Thank you! That chicken was the best thing I've eaten in a long time. It was so flavorful and tender." said one man as he was leaving.

Because of the generosity of Good Sam and the work of our wonderful volunteer gleaners, we were able to serve 265 delicious, well-rounded meals today. We fed every single person who came to our door and made a lot of hungry people happy. Thank you Good Sam!