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Christmas
pageant hosted by church
St.
Michael's celebrates donation of icon
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Finding ways to feed the hungry |
Church opens community kitchen to provide meals for
the needy |
By Schellene Clendenin, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Schellene at sclendenin@eaglenewspapers.com
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When Janice Allen walked
into the office of David Case, pastor of Newberg Christian Church,
she imagined she carried a tiny flame of a plan to open the church’s
kitchen to help feed the hungry in Newberg.
“When I went in with this little idea it was as if I had lit this
match,” she said. “I thought, ‘When I go into the pastor’s office,
the match will get blown out.’
“But it was like I had walked into a room with natural gas and it
just exploded.”
The NCC kitchen is adjacent to the church’s community life center.
Twelve tables will be set up near the kitchen from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
every Thursday evening beginning Jan. 6. Allen also hopes to provide
job information and classifieds from within the church to visitors
to the community kitchen.
Allen, a church employee, said she was going through the building
with an insurance agent last summer when they walked through the
church’s kitchen. The agent thought it would make a great community
kitchen to help feed the hungry.
The idea took on a life of its own. Allen said she contacted YCAP
(Community Action Program of Yamhill County) and Love INC (In the
Name of Christ), visited St. Barnabas soup kitchen in McMinnville,
had the church’s kitchen inspected by the health department and
applied for a food handler’s card.
Allen said any time she needed something, from volunteers – she
already has 100 people signed on to help – to funding – Fred Meyer
called Thursday with an offer of $1,800 and a commercial
refrigerator – it seemed to miraculously appear.
“It has been anointed,” she said. “Whenever I needed something it
would come through donations. It’s been a lot of work, but work that
has gone very smoothly.”
Many families live on the edge of poverty in Newberg, said Judy
Christensen of Newberg F.I.S.H. (Friends In Service to Humanity).
“Right now we only have three homeless families that we know of
that live under the bridges,” she said. “Rent is too high, food too
expensive, their unemployment runs out, their jobs are gone. They
are on the edge of being homeless, their utilities turned off. They
use their money to eat.”
According to the Oregon Food Bank, requests for emergency food
baskets rose 11 percent in the past year.
“This is a no-strings-attached, no-fee effort with no church
programs,” Allen said about the community kitchen. “We wanted to
provide non-judgmental, non-threatening, free environment for
people.”
She said the volunteers’ hearts go out to people in need. “We are
excited to have something to offer to them.”
The kitchen is for the single mom who comes home with no money at
end of month and needs to feed her kids, or the two-income families
having a hard time making ends meet, as well as the homeless, Allen
said.
The area is kid-friendly, she said, and there is plenty of room for
children to run around and play. Crayons and placemats to color on
will be available on the tables.
Volunteers from the Hispanic community interested in helping
provide authentic Mexican meals are also being sought.
“It’s been a community effort,” she said. “It’s become harder and
harder for families to put food on the table. This will be their
chance to sit back and relax.”
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From
Dec. 11, 2004,
Newberg Graphic
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