For a few years now I’ve been really thinking about the homeless population, and trying to figure out how I can help. I read an extremely depressing, but powerful book a couple years ago called This Brilliant Darkness and have been fascinated by the stories of people who find themselves on the streets. During the pandemic I’ve noticed the population seemingly explode, and decided to increase my monthly donation and become more diligent about looking at volunteer opportunities at the shelter.

A little over a month ago the shelter was looking for volunteers for the women’s closet at the women’s shelter, so I signed up to help once a month. I was so pumped when on my first visit I discovered that a childhood friend of mine is the volunteer coordinator! Not only did I get to help an organization dear to my heart, Humankind Ministries, but I got to do it alongside Jade.

In addition to helping in the closet, I saw there was a need for meals. But when someone signs up to help serve the meal, they are also in charge of buying the food and preparing the meal - for 100 people. This just sounded overwhelming, and very expensive to me, so I was gonna stick to helping in the closet. However, I noticed Jade posted on Facebook that they didn’t have anyone signed up for meals 5 days the next week. Her post was on a Tuesday, so I signed up for the following Tuesday because anything sooner just didn’t seem to give me enough time to prepare. I also decided to post on Facebook to see if I had any friends who wanted to donate some money towards the food, and that’s when the magic happened.

I really had no idea how much it would cost to feed 100 people dinner and some sort of grab-and-go breakfast, which was also part of the package, so I was hoping to get at least $100 and I would cover the rest. I posted just before bed, and by the time I woke up I had HUNDREDS of dollars in my Venmo! Over the past week I’ve had friends donate a whopping $495, PLUS 18 pounds of ground beef. I was - and am - completely blown away by everyone’s generosity! Thank you so much for trusting me to use your money well.

Last Thursday I was volunteering in the closet again, and Jade was cooking the meal on her own that night because she still hadn’t had anyone sign up. She also mentioned that no one had signed up for the next night (Friday), and she didn’t know what she was going to do. Armed with the hundreds of dollars from you guys, I told her I would figure it out. Immediately upon leaving the shelter that night I went to the grocery store, filled a cart, headed home, baked two giant pans of brownies, and foil wrapped around 100 potatoes. The next morning I loaded all that, plus 50 pounds of chicken into my car and drove to school. I unloaded all the food into the teacher’s lounge refrigerator, taught all my classes, and then went straight to the culinary arts classroom after school and started prepping my pans of chicken and got the potatoes into the oven. (Shout out to our culinary arts teacher for letting me use his ovens!) Once I got the chicken into the oven as well, I taught my private Spanish lesson via Zoom, and then took it out when the lesson was over. Perfect timing. I loaded everything back into my car and drove to the shelter where I unloaded it all, and then served it, alongside Jade. I still don’t understand how I cooked food for what ended up being about 70 people when I normally don’t even have the energy to cook for myself, but I’m glad it all worked out!

Sunday I headed back to the grocery store - and to my friend Christie’s house to pick up the beef she was donating to the cause - and got all the food for round two. This time I made baked ziti, garlic bread, salad, and chocolate chip cookies. I prepared two giant pans of ziti on Sunday, and another 3 pans last night. I also made most of the cookies last night, but had a few more to cook this morning before work. Immediately after work I headed home, got all the stuff loaded into my car, and headed back to the shelter to get everything warming in the ovens. Tonight there was a smaller crowd, so we didn’t even go through half of the food I’d prepared, which ended up being another blessing because Jade said they still didn’t have anyone signed up to cook for tomorrow, so today’s meal is serving double duty! You all have helped provide THREE meals for the shelter in this one week! Technically 5 meals because we also provided Pop Tarts for breakfast last Saturday, and bagels and peanut butter for breakfast tomorrow (which Jade made fun of me for in the most loving way possible saying that was “some white people shit” which made me LOL)!

Each round of this has cost me about $200, so I still have $100 left. At some point, when needed, I will cook another meal, but after this week I really need a break! Even though I am exhausted and feel like I’ve cooked more in this week than in the entire year, I am incredibly grateful for all my friends that helped me live this dream and look like a hero to my friend, Jade, and all the people at the shelter - I really couldn’t have done it without you all! And as I said, I’m planning at least one more meal, but would be so so happy to do this many more times if anyone still feels like donating some money to the cause. Or, for those of you in Wichita, if you can come up with a group of people to cook, or get about $200 together, Humankind Ministries could really use your help.

Thanks so much too for all the people who reached out to help that I didn’t get back with. It all kind of happened so fast, and figuring out the logistics was hurting my brain, but I truly do appreciate your support!