Guest blog post by Deborah Cohen, volunteer and Board Member
It’s 5:30 p.m., 30 minutes before opening, and the line for takeout is snaking down the block. The crowds are eager to sample the evening’s menu of chicken curry with fresh peach chutney, rice and broccoli.
The purveyor of this destination is not a food truck or restaurant pop-up—it’s the increasingly popular hot meal program offered weekly by The Friendship Center. Begun in 2018, the program now offers portable meals every Thursday night from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. to 260 clients on average at the Center’s 2711 W. Lawrence Ave. location. In recent weeks, the program has served 320 or more meals in a single evening.
“This is important,” says Matthew Williams, 42, a client and North Side resident, who was once unhoused for five years. He is a fan of the Center’s chicken meals. “This is what they need to keep,” he adds. “No one should go hungry.”
Williams is part of a diverse community of clients, many repeat participants, who are willing to line up weekly to receive balanced meals they say are convenient, nutritious, and readily available, no questions asked.
Beyond a love of the carefully prepared food, demand for the fresh meals is increasing due to economic pressures. Those include rising inflation on household staples such as food and gasoline, as well as recent cuts to the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the longstanding federal food assistance program.
Every meal is an opportunity to care for one another, nourish our neighbors and remind everyone that they have a place at our table,” says Nadia Jimenez, executive director.
Behind the scenes
Preparation for the weekly menu begins two days ahead of service, requiring careful planning and a team of staff and volunteers both to cook the food and hand it to clients as they come through the line.
At the program’s core are staff members Mateo Reynaud, 22, and Bree Perry, 27. Both had experience in professional kitchens prior to joining the Center, and both are, incidentally, members of Chicago’s trans community. They say being part of that minority group has helped to inform their mindset in the center’s tiny kitchen, ensuring they create a welcoming environment for volunteers, while creating meals that acknowledge the wide-ranging culinary backgrounds of clients.
“We try to do what we know people will enjoy,” says Reynaud, programs manager, who grew up in New Orleans and was exposed to that city’s renowned cuisine. Feedback from volunteers and clients is important, he says, noting that family recipes from volunteers have made their way onto the menu.
“We have the basics of really good food here,” says Perry, programs and volunteer coordinator, adding that the team is tasked with creating meals primarily from ingredients donated to the pantry. She was particularly proud of a recent meal whose cost was 6 cents per plate—just $20 to serve about 300 people.
Perry has been pushing to up the kitchen skills for regular volunteers, recently offering knife skills training from professional chefs. She and her colleagues have also set up important partnerships, such as with Love Fridge Chicago, which distributes the Center’s leftover meals to others in need.
The Center’s holistic approach resonates with volunteers like Zack Kam, 36, who was recently working a nine-week stint in the kitchen to help fulfill a community service requirement.
“I like the mission,” Kam says. Working in the hot meal program has put him in touch with “all sorts of cool people – a lot of young people, people a lot older.”
And while these operational nuances are important to those creating the meals, they may go unnoticed by the program’s loyal clients whose takeaways are good food and a sense of belonging. That is true for Linda Smith, 60, who works in south suburban schools with special needs children and travels up from the South Side to partake in both the food pantry and the hot meal program.
“Sometimes I get here, and I’m so tired,” she says. “But this is so special.”