Attendance for July's Feed Medical Lake showed that the program is attracting a following of community members and helping stretch food budgets.
Aided by local volunteers, Medical Lake resident Joanna Williams served 89 meals at the first event in June. Although final numbers weren't available, she guessed that volunteers served around 100 burgers with soup at the July 11 program.
“Everybody loved the strawberry soup. One of the teenagers said that it tasted like strawberry yogurt,” Williams said.
Of the 89 receiving meals in June, around 25 were children, some of whom doubled as volunteers.
“It was a meal their parents didn't have to prepare for them,” Williams said.
Williams hands out nearly 300 to 500 announcements each month in order to bring awareness to the community.
June's meal came in at $136 for the 100 servings. Although July's event had some more costly fare, with the hamburgers and soup, it still came in under $150.
Williams's goal is to make the cost of each meal equal $1.
“I'm trying to make it a dollar a portion and yet serve a nutritious and appetizing meal that people want to come for,” she said.
For the most part, Williams has relied on donations, both in monetary and non-perishable food forms. Faced with the difficulty of stocking their own shelves, the Second Harvest Food Bank is unable to help at the moment.
“Right now I've been working off of some very generous cash donations,” Williams said.
In the meantime, she is finding and writing applications for grants to help with financing. Another opportunity lies in forming a “partners” program for Feed Medical Lake. An ideal situation would have individuals giving $10 or $20 per month to the program. Depending on the amount of giving, only five partners would be needed to sustain the projected $100 food budget.
Finding money and food donors has been more difficult than Williams first anticipated, but she now has a sizeable group of regular volunteers.
One of the volunteers at Feed Medical Lake is a former cook from the Medical Lake School District.
“She just retired after 30 years and was looking for something to do,” Williams said.
Along with the scheduled meal, cans of soup as well as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are also available.
Williams said that she plans to put together a survey six months into the program. Much like the Feed Cheney program, it will focus on how those in attendance traveled to get there. In addition, the survey will ask for meal suggestions.
Should its success continue, Feed Medical Lake could expand into a breakfast and a supper meal on alternating weeks. Starting a clothing bank is also on the docket, although she said that Medical Lake's Care and Share already does a good job with their service. Money earned by Care and Share goes to the Medical Lake Food Bank.
The plan for the Aug. 8 meal is to have barbecued pork sandwiches with pineapple chunks, potato salad, applesauce and lemonade.
Feed Medical Lake is held on the second Monday of each month, from 5 —6 p.m. at St. John's Lutheran Church, 223 South Hallett St.
James Eik can be reached at [email protected].
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