Wayside Soup Kitchen - WOW

Submitted by Susan Angell

WOW, WOW, WOW........................

Last night People's people served 300+ hungry persons at the Wayside Soup Kitchen. Those of us that arrived early were immediately set to work in preparation. The cooks were deeply involved in preparing fresh vegetables, salads, and the cooking of chicken and rice. Others were busily cutting pies and the like for desserts, setting tables, preparing coffee, juice and milk machines for the beverage table,cutting up blocks of butter and slicing of bread. I was totally excited that they allowed me to use the machine that slices the whole loaves of bread. For some unknown reason, usually no one allows me to touch moving machinery. Positions were assigned. Anita Lyons generously assigned her husband, Charlie Lyons to the dish washing duty. There were those that staffed the beverage table and those that put the food onto the dishes in a serving line. Tom was asked to assist with security. The remaining 6 of us were assigned our tables. If you serve restaurant style, you need 20-30 people to serve the tables, so buffet from the kitchen was necessitated. The 6 had the job of assisting people, serving refills on drinks, refreshing the butter and bread bowls, busing the tables of those that were finished and eventually washing down all the tables and chairs to ready them for the next days breakfast crowd.
The doors were opened and in they came. Some were in wheel chairs, some young people with the hard look of those living on the streets, older shop worn men and women and many carrying all they own in back packs, strollers and plastic bags and they were hungry. Time passed swiftly. Tom Nelson always amazes me. Compared to his energized wife, Barb Nelson, he looks quiet and slow moving. The man was everywhere doing this and that in his calm way. Art Tordoff too is just always in the right place at the right time. The gals that dished out the food on plates never faltered. The cooks kept the hot food coming. An extremely pretty and young woman there doing Community Service lost her veneer and began to show the strain of dealing with so many people. The young woman from Oakhurst with the friendly smile dealt with the horde admirably. Jalen, Barb and Tom's grandson and the youngest of us, managed to do the task of handing out beverages and never lost his cool. The unending stream of dirty dishes were washed and put away. After 7 and the people were gone, tables and chairs cleaned, floors swept, kitchen cleaned, trash put out and silence. Tired but at the same time energized, we all went home. GOOD JOB DONE.
There has been of talk about Peoples letting this ministry go as we are a small church with not a massive amount of people (others included Kathy Brann, Betsy Morrison, Marlene Tordoff, Janice Huelin, Betty Splettstoesser, Becky Gotlieb and Sue Angell). While lots of churches and corporations are abandoning this ministry for other, nicer, things such as ESL, Habitant for Humanity, The Root Cellar, Walks for various causes, this grittier side of community service needs our help too. We may be few but we sure showed we are mighty!

Note from Tom Nelson:
Susan you put this so very eloquently. WOW is an understatement. I was really worried when I saw only Peoples people but we may have been small but the power of Jesus was in all of us. I thank each and everyone for all their hard work. Charlie worked just about the hardest of any of us so Hats off to Charlie. Glad bean suppers are not this crazy. We will be at it in October 31 so if you missed the fun put it on your calendar.
God Bless you all and Thanks for the support