Hungry receive Good Shepherd’s tender loving care

It takes 15 minutes for members of Good Shepherd Parish’s St. Vincent de Paul group to dispense 200 boxed lunches to the homeless and working poor who come to the Rebuild Center at St. Joseph Church in downtown New Orleans.

The sheer speed of the feeding operation belies the care that goes into the contents of each Styrofoam container.

When the covers are lifted, the hungry find meals their own families might have cooked for them in happier times – things like white beans and rice, Irish stew and meat sauce made with slowly simmered tomato gravy.

“We generally feed about 200 people, so we always cook for that number,” said Good Shepherd parishioner Daniel LeBlanc, sautéing mounds of chopped bell pepper, onions and garlic in a cast-iron skillet during a recent cooking session that yielded 10 gallons of chicken stew.

The Good Shepherd volunteers have been taking hot, home-cooked meals to the Rebuild Center on the first and third Thursday of the month for three years. They cook for nearly four hours in the downstairs kitchen of the parish rectory on a Wednesday and reconvene the following day in the CBD to plate and serve the feast.

LeBlanc said the numbers he and his fellow volunteers feed fluctuate depending upon whether it is the first or third Thursday.

“In the beginning of the month people have their social security checks, so we’ll have about 120 to 130 people,” LeBlanc said. “At the end of the month it’s anywhere from 190 to 215 – people run out of money and need food. That’s when you see the families come in, especially during the summer months. It’s heartbreaking when you see 7- and 8-year-olds coming in to get a meal.”

Hot, well-rounded meals

The grocery list for a recent marathon cooking session was gargantuan: 40 pounds of deboned chicken thighs, each piece freed of excess fat by the volunteer cooks; 20 pounds of potatoes; 10 pounds of carrots; eight pounds of onions; 10 bell peppers; three bunches of celery; and a cup of minced garlic. Rice – 20 pounds of it – was prepared in batches in a rice cooker, while corn was seasoned as a side vegetable.

The Good Shepherd helpers have set two rules for themselves: their lunch menu must always include a fresh salad – typically with tasty extras such as Romaine lettuce, tomatoes and olives; and no sandwiches, even though cold items form the backbone of the Rebuild Center’s five-day-a-week lunch service and are greatly appreciated by guests.

“We just decided that we never wanted to serve a cold meal,” said Hunter Harris, searing flour-dredged chicken thighs to cull drippings for a roux. “If I can’t serve it at my house, I don’t want to serve it there.”

Good intentions vs. reality

The feeding effort began as a desire among Good Shepherd’s Vincentians to do something for the hungry in their own parish. They originally thought they could distribute meals through two rectory windows, but after consulting with Presentation Sister Vera Butler of the Rebuild Center’s Lantern Light ministry, they learned it would be more complicated.

“There are a lot of laws about feeding the homeless,” Harris said. “The kitchen’s got to be approved by the (state) Department of Health. You can’t just pop up and give people food; you’ve got to have a license to do so. You have to have bathrooms. We realized we couldn’t do it.”

As an alternative, Sister Vera invited the Good Shepherd Vincentians to cook monthly for the Rebuild Center’s weekday lunch service and join the 20 or so groups that actively staff the feeding operation.

“After we did once-a-month for about nine months, Sister Vera liked the way we were doing it, so she gave us another day,” said Harris, also noting the enthusiastic support of his pastor, Msgr. Christopher Nalty.

Every penny well spent

On lunch-service days, the Good Shepherd volunteers arrive at the Rebuild Center at 10:30 a.m. to prep the salad and slice bread donated by Dong Phong, a bakery in New Orleans East. After heating their pre-cooked dishes to the required minimum temperature of 152 degrees, they fill to-go containers in assembly-line fashion and put them in a warming cabinet. Lunch is served after the 1 p.m. prayer, through a window that opens up onto the center’s expansive, sheltered deck.

Given its prolific output, Good Shepherd’s 26-member feeding ministry stays miraculously within its budget. The average annual, out-of-pocket cost of each boxed meal – 85 cents – is completely funded by parishioner contributions. Ministry leaders keep costs in check by buying ingredients in bulk from Restaurant Depot. Another friend, American Legion Post 307, delivers two cases of bananas to Good Shepherd in advance of every lunch service.

Grateful hearts, stomachs

Good Shepherd parishioner Dottie Forly appreciates how the Rebuild Center serves not only the homeless but “the marginal people in the community” – those who have some income but who often must choose between serving their families complete meals, refilling their medications and paying for their utilities.

Kay Mumphrey, another volunteer, said she is struck by how almost everyone she serves will tell her “Thank you” or “God bless you.”

“It teaches you to respect the most humble,” Mumphrey said.

Beth Donze can be reached at bdonze@clarionherald.org.