Campus Kitchen keeps Thursday bellies full

People begin to form a line at the front doors of a small community center on the west end of Second Street every Thursday at 3:30 p.m. The line grows in size with each passing minute, with its end creeping closer to the dilapidated apartment building next door with the addition of each new person. They wait because they are in need for something simple and necessary -- a hot meal and a little company.

The needy of Spokane know that they can count on a meal being served each week at the Second Avenue Dinner, which is put on by Gonzaga's Campus Kitchen. However, the future of the program was in doubt before Campus Kitchen took over the project in October of last year.

The dinner began in 2000 as a program of the Spokane Neighborhood Action Program (SNAP), a non-profit organization that works with low-income and vulnerable populations in Spokane. Members of SNAP noticed that various charities and churches served dinner each night out of the week, but Thursday nights were missing a venue for the needy to get a meal, said Jill Painter-Holmes, who helped get the dinner started and works for SNAP. SNAP began handing out sack-dinners from their office every Thursday night but soon began offering hot meals as well, funding the dinners with money borrowed from other programs.

The dinner began to grow in size as awareness about its existence was spread through word-of-mouth and the addition of a meal site schedule that is posted at various churches and shelters. By last fall, SNAP had used up a significant amount of money on the dinner that was intended for other purposes, so the decision was made that hosting the dinner was no longer an option. SNAP hoped that the dinner, which often serves more than 100 people, would find another way to survive.

"If it's viable, the community will come forward," Painter-Holmes said. "We took a risk with it."

As hoped, the dinner was picked up by Campus Kitchen last October and has continued to serve hot meals each week. Volunteers from Campus Kitchen cook left over food from the COG (the campus cafeteria) and food donations from the Second Harvest Food Bank on Wednesday nights and serve the food on Thursday. About a dozen volunteers come each week, either from Campus Kitchen, the Gonzaga University Service Club, the Comprehensive Leadership Program, or area churches, said Whitney Lohman, a junior and co-coordinator of the Second Avenue Dinner. Besides serving a hot meal, volunteers also distribute sack meals, clothing, dog food, and toiletries and a raffle is held once a month for bus passes that are purchased by SNAP.

The dinner not only serves the city's needy, but also helps compile data on homelessness in Spokane. Each person who shows up for the dinner is asked questions about there their current economic, housing, and medical situation. The answers are recorded and turned over to the city for statistical analysis.

Most of the people coming to the dinner at the beginning of each month are homeless, but near the end of each month a mix of people, many who have ran out of food stamps, come to receive a meal, said Jim Murphy, a Gonzaga graduate and co-coordinator of the Second Avenue Dinner. The end of each month is when the dinner gets the busiest, he said.

Many people show up each Thursday for more than just a meal, but for the sense of belonging in the community that has been built up at the Second Avenue Dinner during its nine years of operation. Many are regulars and come to see their friends, some keep coming back even though they have moved off of the streets because it is a way for them to see people that they knew when they were homeless, said Painter-Holmes.

The Second Avenue Dinner has proved not only to be valuable to those receiving meals, but to the students involved in its operation as well. Mackenzie Wadas, a freshman, and Amy Bowers, a junior, said that volunteering at the dinner have made them think about homeless people in a deeper way that transcends their sometimes rough appearances.

"The people are very friendly and welcoming," Bowers said. "I feel like I am becoming a part of their community."

Painter-Holmes said that in her nine years of involvement with the dinner she has seen many volunteers begin to identify when the people that they serve, eliminating their view of the homeless as the "other." Joel McClure, a senior and president of the Service Club, has had experiences at the dinner along these lines.

"Sometimes we'll get people coming in to volunteer mixed up with those coming in to eat," he said. Some people look like they are not in need, but looks can be deceiving, he said.