Grace’s Kitchen Provides Community Meals Amid Growing Need

Inflation is rising, and more and more people are in need of a little extra help. St. Barnabas of the Valley Episcopal Church host Grace's Kitchen, a free community lunch three days a week. You are watching the "Local NEWS Network," brought to you by Big O Tires and the LOR Foundation. I'm Sadie Smith. Grace's Kitchen serves free community lunch every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Homemade meals are available to anyone with no questions asked.

It's just a continued reality that it's just on the increase. Some of the things we have discovered is that there's probably a lot more people that are in need, but they're not quite aware of some of the services.

Grace's Kitchen has been serving meals for more than 25 years. It started in the late '90s with a group of people who were concerned about hunger in the unhoused population. With recent economic pressures, Grace's Kitchen has had to increase the meals it prepares to meet the need.

We try our best to make sure that whoever comes gets something to eat that day. So we try to menu plan according to the regular patterns that had been pretty consistent until recently, which were beginning of the month, we were doing anywhere from, in the last year, 80 to 100 meals and maybe bouncing up to about 120 at the end of the month as people manage their budgets and use our resources to help them with their economic pictures. We have now seen that. We are seeing anywhere from 100 plus at the beginning of the month, and we have been pushing numbers in the last couple of months, middle of the month, to the end of the month, to about 150 meals a day.

Grace's Kitchen doesn't turn anyone away. Meals are served as takeout, and volunteers say many of the people they serve also need the food to feed their families.

So we don't ask anybody any questions. They don't have to show any need. They don't have to show anything other than they're here at the door and asking for what they need for that day. So some people we know are just coming for themselves and we just say, "If you want to come back near the end of the time, you could get a second meal." And we do have people that are picking up meals that we know are taking them to family members, or neighbors, or others. So we kind of get to know some of the patrons that come here by just being hospitable.

Grace's Kitchen operates through the generous donations they receive.

This community in Cortez and the surrounding area is extremely generous, and I just got to name that 'cause it is wonderful to see people just giving support in whatever ways they can give support, and just want to give thanks to the community for that.

If you would like to support the cause, they accept both food and monetary donations. More information may be found on the St. Barnabas of the Valley Episcopal Church website. For more information about this and other stories, visit montezumalocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of the "Local NEWS Network." I'm Sadie Smith.