Bread & Beans

Bread & Beans Center services hungry and homeless people in the Baltimore area - they provide hundreds of lunches five days a week and offer an array of other services.  They are truly reaching out to "the least of these" in many substantial ways.  They are in the process of expanding their center and starting April 1st, their kitchen is closed for renovations for 2 months.  They reached out to the community to help provide the meals they would be unable to put together during that time.  Our small group happily accepted the task for one day - we were in charge of gathering supplies and assembling 100 bag lunches.  This included a meat & cheese sandwich, a fruit, a drink, and a sweet treat.  We did this at our house, and then a sweet friend delivered all 100 lunches to the Bread & Beans Center.

It sounded a little overwhelming and expensive, but wow, God sure provided for us.  Bagel Works provided the bread (leftovers from the day that weren't used and would have been thrown out otherwise), Red Brick Station donated ALL of the meat and cheese (that is over 20 lbs of turkey and 5 lbs of cheese, people!), and Chic-Fil-A donated mustard and mayo packets.  And then our small group filled in the rest, providing fruit, juice boxes, yummy homemade treats, and paper bags.

We had a few assembly lines going while a few of us drew love notes on the outsides of the bags.  This was a perfect service project for the kids to be involved in, and it made an impact.  Angel said at one point, "Mom, this is so cool!  I can't believe we're doing this!"  Almost brought tears to my eyes!!  It was a beautiful night and we were finished in 30 minutes!  100 bag lunches created and stuffed in 30 minutes.  So super cool.  We had a fun time serving together, and it was amazing to see how many businesses were willing to help out.  We also heard from many other people that they wished they had known so they could have gotten involved too!

And that's why I wrote this big long blog post, as well as snapped a few pictures ... if you are local and interested in covering some of the bag lunches, Bread & Beans NEEDS your helps!  They have most of the April dates covered but still have quite a few May dates to take care of.  Will you please consider serving them in this way?  I promise it's fun and rewarding, and the kids will love it!  You only need to get several families together and make some phone calls to make it a true success.  Email Kathleen at kathleen.filkins@vincentbaltimore.org for more information about available dates!