Soup kitchen volunteers ladle out the love

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - They shuffle up to the take-out windows in the drizzle, some friendly, some not. With clear eyes and steady hands; with overcast eyes and hands that are practically seismic. Most are broke or broken. For a few, that would be putting it kindly.

No matter what their stories, they're in this line together. They all need something to eat. Folks like Charlie and "Bear" and "Talks A Lot Mary."

And that's what they get five days a week, 52 weeks a year at the Downtown Soup Kitchen in the heart of Alaska's biggest city

Not just food for the body, but food for the soul. Because a whole lot of giving and a whole lot of praying goes on in this place.

On the other side of these windows are cheery volunteers in colorful aprons and latex gloves, first names posted on their chests. They hand out fresh sandwiches. They fill Styrofoam cups with soup. Soup ladled from 20-gallon pots, pots so big they need a stirring utensil the size of a canoe paddle. Cookies and doughnuts and lemonade and tea. And a side dish of Jesus upon request.

Vicki Martin is an assistant director without a director since Patty Barsalou moved away last year. She's been doing the phone, computer and paperwork part of the mission in a cramped office with an Elvis clock for company. It's been double duty, so others have stepped in to give her a hand, most recently Whit Garey.

To keep the operation running smoothly, it takes something like 50 volunteers a week from a pool of 90, and a couple of guys from a halfway house doing their community service.

"We have volunteers coming from various walks of life, mostly people of faith, but that's not a prerequisite," says board member Mindy Leary. "Anyone is welcome. You know, even people not of faith I think after they've worked here, they see something very special moving among us."

Jenny Loudon volunteers twice a month. The other day, she brought along her 4-year-old daughter, Cate, a tiny thing swimming in her apron who sat on a stool handing out cookies and doughnuts.

"Is that your daughter?" weathered patrons asked with a smile.

"Cute!"

"Hey little spirit."

Loudon's's 7-year-old son Christopher got them into this. He goes to school at Chugach Optional and would see some of these same people out the car window on the drive to and from school.

"He'd see the homeless and he'd say, 'Mom, can we stop and give them money?' And I'd say, 'Well, honey, that may not be the best way to help them. Let's find another way.'

"Not every organization likes to have kids come and help serve," she says. "So we really appreciate the fact that they not only allow it, but appreciate it, that they have a belief that everybody, no matter what age, has something to give."

Light your Free Virtual Prayer Candle: We will pray with you

The Downtown Soup Kitchen has been ladling up soup, at times more regularly than others, for nearly 30 years.

The nonprofit operates out of a converted garage and an addition behind an old log cabin painted barnyard red. A really old log cabin. A plaque out front explains that in the 1920s, it was the home of Jack and Nellie Brown, thought to be the earliest residents of Anchorage since Jack Brown came to Ship Creek in 1912, three years before Anchorage was born.

ChangePoint church acquired the property about seven years ago. It also bought the two-story yellow house next door, where two days a week patrons can sign up for showers and laundry services. ChangePoint's social service arm, Grace Alaska, partners with 16 other churches to keep the mission going, with most of its funding coming from donations and fundraisers.

Some days the line goes most of the way down the alley. Some days, it goes all the way to the end, turns the corner and then some. On average, the kitchen feeds between 300 and 350 a day.

It used to be mostly homeless people and street kids lining up for lunch. These days, Martin says, she's seeing a lot more working poor. Men, women and children. People with homes, cars and jobs, too many bills and too little cash.

Volunteers show up Monday through Friday at 9:30 a.m. to start making soup and fix sandwiches out of the day's donations. A little of this, a lot of that, some spice and creative winging it and the next thing you know it's soup surprise.

"Everybody ready to go?" Martin asks her crew before opening at noon.

Once she gets the thumbs up, she heads out into the drizzle to greet those standing in line, some in winter coats, some in T-shirts. Well-groomed and quite the contrary. Missing a leg, arm in a sling. A nose so red it could stop traffic.

She announces the fare of the day_moose and caribou soup, more like a stew actually, and pastrami sandwiches.

"We'll go ahead and pray now," she says as guys yank off their caps and hold them to their chests.

With a burglar alarm going off in the distance, Martin offers thanks for the food and asks for a ring of protection around the place.

"Amen," she says, as a garbage truck rumbles up the alley.

"Amen," the people say.

The take-out windows_one for soup and sandwiches, one for sweets and drinks_are now open. No eye contact required.

The Battle for Catholic Education - Prevent the Collapse Now!

"Hi there, sandwich for you?"

"Humff," goes one.

"Thank you, people," goes another.

Attached to the serving kitchen is a 16-by-20-foot chapel with a linoleum floor, wooden benches painted bright orange and chest freezers lining the walls. Folks can eat in here if they like.

"Sometimes in the winter people won't come inside," Martin said. "They don't want to warm up because it's too hard to go back outside. They eat outside, rain or snow."

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

Although there's always a coat being offered to anyone who looks cold, this day the volunteers have a box of bright yellow rain ponchos to give away. Ed and Patty Judd donate a lot of socks, gloves, scarves and so on, and Ed, who's always poking around the Internet for deals for the mission, found these rain ponchos for 89 cents apiece.

"What we were doing before was cutting out trash bags," Martin said. "Not much dignity walking around in a trash bag."

In addition to making and serving lunch, the volunteers find other ways to make people's days a little nicer. Like visiting them in the hospital, knitting them hats and mining second-hand stores for things to give away. One woman drops by now and then, waves her cell phone in the air and offers free long-distance calls.

They also minister to those who ask. And when one of their favorite street kids ended up dead, a few of them gathered at his grave to pray and celebrate what would have been his 21st birthday.

Mindy Leary was one of them. She got involved with the soup kitchen after her son's fiancee was killed by a drunk driver, at first channeling her grief as a member of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Monitoring the justice system she felt something lacking. That would be God. When she found her way to the soup kitchen, she knew she was where she was supposed to be.

"Through love, sometimes you can reach people in ways you can't imagine," she said. "It's sharing that love, God's love."

Leary collects "stories from the alley" for the soup kitchen's newsletter, writing vignettes about things she hears and the characters she meets. Like "Homeless Bill," the "Lady in Pink" and a guy she graduated from Anchorage's West High with in 1973 who she suspects lives in the woods.

Among her favorites was the one about the fellow seen ripping pages out of the pocket-sized New Testament he'd been given to roll himself a smoke.

Secret Archives of the Saints, Subscribe Today

Martin was horrified. But the man who'd donated it, along with hundreds of other Bibles, took it in stride.

"Well, at least he's breathing in The Word," he said.

The same could be said of the soup.

___

© 2008, Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska).