Friendly Kitchen, friendly faces

By Tim Goodwin - Nov 19, 2013 | 0 comments

The service attire.

Donated baked goods line a table for people to choose.

The walk-in refrigerator is filled with all kinds of donated food.

Carol Webster carefully removes a pan of American chop suey from the oven.

Dorian Scammon cuts up some celery root for a salad in preparation for Thursday’s lunch service at the Friendly Kitchen.

When Carol Webster and Dorian Scammon walk into the Friendly Kitchen each Thursday morning, they never know what will be available to serve at lunch that day.

Scammon refers to her volunteer gig as something resembling a popular cable cooking show.

“We like to pretend we’re on Chopped,” said Scammon. “What’s in the basket today?”

Since the pair only volunteer on Thursdays, serving lunch to those in need from Concord and the surrounding area, they must first assess what ingredients need to be used first and how can they make the meal unique from the previous few days.

“You don’t want to serve the same thing over and over again,” said Webster. “We never know what we’re going to make, but it’s amazing the good food that comes out of this kitchen. We wouldn’t serve anything we wouldn’t eat.”

With some hamburger and noodles cooked the previous night at their disposal, Webster decided on American Chop Suey as the main course for last Thursday’s meal, mixing in some spaghetti sauce, a few chopped up vegetables and plenty of cheese. There was tomato soup hanging around from the previous day’s service and the addition of a tossed salad, sliced watermelon, some donated sandwiches and desserts gave the meal a well rounded feel. And that is their goal every week.

“We need to be conscious of a full meal and we like to give them choices,” said Webster. “That’s why I always try to do a salad.”

And the leftover food that cannot be used again goes into the pig room and is taken by local farmers to feed their animals.

“It all goes to the pigs and chickens. Nothing goes to waste,” said Webster. “The only thing they don’t want is onions.”

“One of my pet peeves is waste. It’s our responsibility to use the food that’s around,” said Scammon.

Webster and Scammon spend about two hours preparing the food for their weekly lunch service that feeds about 60 people on average. They know some of the guests by name and others by sight, and for the most part the faces are the same each week.

“You never know how many people there will be. Sometimes the numbers are really low, sometimes they’re super high,” said Scammon.

The Friendly Kitchen has been serving between 4,000 and 5,000 meals each month since opening the new location at 2 S. Commercial St. last December, just over a year and a half after the previous was lost to fire. But even without a permanent home, the Friendly Kitchen never missed a meal.

In the first 10 months of this year, the Friendly Kitchen outserved its 2012 totals by almost 2,000 meals, and with winter rapidly approaching, Friendly Kitchen Director Jennifer Lombardo expects those numbers to keep rising. There are about 50-60 meals served each weekday for lunch and around 100, including families with children, for dinner. Dinner is served every night at 5 p.m., and at the beginning of December, breakfast will go from being a strictly weekend service to seven days a week.

“This puts a face to what is happening out there,” said Lombardo, who began working with the Friendly Kitchen in 1989 as a volunteer. “Homeless people have a bad rap. Some are homeless, some are just having a hard time making ends meet.”

And the one constant for the Friendly Kitchen is the volunteers. Lombardo, who took over as director six years ago, has about 60 local organizations who take care of a breakfast, lunch or dinner services each month. There are also inpidual volunteers like Webster and Scammon who donate their time to help feed those in need of a meal.

“It’s just amazing,” said Lombardo. “It’s all volunteer, yet I can count on them coming in every month or every week.”

The Friendly Kitchen would be unable to serve those close to 5,000 meals each month without all the help. With a limited budget that mostly goes to food and paying the few staff employees, the volunteers are the ones who make things go.

“Most of our volunteers aren’t chefs,” said Lombardo. “They just want to help.”

Most of the food is brought in through charity food drives, grants and inpidual donations.

“People will call and say they want to do a food drive for us,” said Lombardo. “And we get a lot of people who just drop off bags.”

But there is also quite a bit that needs to be purchased.

“Probably our biggest cost is milk, coffee, hot chocolate and powdered beverages,” said Lombardo. “We have to serve them at all of our meals.”

While Lombardo never wants to turn away someone who wants to volunteer, right now she has all the people she needs. There is a waiting list that Lombardo keeps in case there is a need in the future.

“I put everybody on a list. This time of year I get a ton of people wanting to volunteer,” said Lombardo.

What the Friendly Kitchen really needs is donations. Food is always welcome, as are monetary donations that will help Lombardo buy food in bulk and cut down the costs.

“We constantly need food and we constantly need money,” said Lombardo.

As the days become shorter and the temperature drops, more and more people will be counting on the Friendly Kitchen. That will mean even more meals for the growing demand.

“We decided on really cold days or really snowy days we will stay open all day,” said Lombardo.

And the Friendly Kitchen could use your help. For more information, visit thefriendlykitchen.org or to find out how you can help, email Lombardo at thefriendlykitchen@thefriendlykitchen.org.