Cookbook Story

Nourish Your Soul Community Cookbook

St. Paul's Baptist Church Emergency Feeding Program
10th & Wallace Streets

I sat with Gladys Allen in a pillared two-story meeting room at St. Paul's Church. Clothes and shoes were laid out on folding tables and two men in colorful T-shirts handed plastic bags of food to people coming in through the narrow hallway off the street. Gladys greeted clients with direct, easy-going, familiarity, checking off names in a notebook she balanced on her lap. As the volunteer coordinator of the St. Paul's food cupboard, Gladys distributes forty bags of food every other Wednesday to needy people living in the immediate community.

Next in line, there was an older man with a black cap pulled over his light, curling hair. He was about to say his name, but Gladys held up her hand.

"Gotcha," she said.

"You know my name already?"

"Yes I do."

"Don't give it to nobody but the FBI."

Gladys smiled without comment and neatly scripted the man's name down on her stack of papers, running her eyes over the previous clients on the list, casually asking about a fellow named Jacobs who used to visit her cupboard, but, just recently, has disappeared.

"Don't know about Jacobs," the man said. "He's on his own schedule. He has to be wheeled around and I ain't wheeling nobody."

Gladys turned to me. "Jacobs lost a leg."

"No, a foot," the man said, obviously disgusted with Jacobs. "He's on his own schedule."

The man left with a bag of food hanging from each fist, waddling side to side to balance the weight of the heavy bundles. Gladys sighed, looking after him, and I asked her if there is anything more she would like to add, anything people should know so they can help. Gladys nodded and looked over the edge of her crossed legs at a stack of advocacy postcards sitting on the table—each card signed by a member of the church, urging senators in Harrisburg to increase funding for emergency feeding programs.

"That helps," she said.

She then pointed to a flyer advertising a town meeting. "And this."

Gladys stopped talking as another man walked in the door. His name was Anthony and he was wearing a shiny blue athletic jersey. He checked in, then walked over to the folding table to pick up his bag of food. Gladys tilted her head in my direction and pointed her pen after Anthony.

"He's on dialysis," she said. "You see? Everyone's different. Everyone has a story."

As recorded by Liz Chandler, former VISTA Volunteer and Future Writer!