Around noon at the Well’s Community Life Center, our members enjoy a simple but powerful blessing: lunches, eaten around a table with others. These times of nourishment and community are made possible by numerous volunteers who demonstrate their care for members through providing and preparing meals, and many Mondays they’re made and delivered by a pair of friends who’ve discovered the joy of serving together.
It began when two volunteers, Suzan and Phil Sprinkle, were looking for someone to take over their slot for preparing meals for the Community Life Center. One of their friends, Donna Cotter, had just retired, and she asked another friend, Kathy Hodgin, to join her in taking over. Though Kathy was still working, she arranged her schedule to make it work and agreed.
Since then, the two have been regulars, faithfully providing lunches for the Community Life Center. Their meals, made with love, brightened members’ days during the pandemic and gave them something to gather around when they could meet in person once again. And with each lunch, the women have focused on making sure that members get the food they need to give them energy for the day. “We always try to do something homemade, something nutritious, and then other things that are filling and then build from there,” Kathy shares.
Along the way, the women embraced the challenge of creatively providing nourishing lunches even amid constraints. “That became the fun of it: to figure out, ‘What can we put in this 10-ounce paper sack?’ It was like a game,” Kathy recalls. “We really approached it that way, knowing that we were possibly providing the only meal that the members of the Well got.”
The women have involved their husbands in the fun as well. “Both of our husbands are doers,” says Kathy, sharing how their men took over several times when she and Donna were unavailable. In addition, other friends have baked desserts or contributed regularly to the lunch bags.
“I think that is the ticket,” Kathy says about serving with friends. “I think that’s the easiest approach to getting involved. It’s more fun.”
Kathy encourages anyone considering volunteering to make lunches that it doesn’t need to be hard. “It does not have to be fancy gourmet food,” she explains, emphasizing that Well Community members need meals that will fill their stomachs and keep them going for the day. “We’ve done things as simple as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and built around that. … You do it all in your own home and you drop it off at 9:30, so there’s no outrageous hours involved. We prep mostly the Sunday before for the Monday delivery.”
Serving as Donna and Kathy do meets a basic but vital need for Well Community Members. As Kathy says, “I don’t know what’s more important than feeding people. And so, it’s as simple as that.”
“Kathy and Donna have long, deep roots in Oak Cliff,” shares Alice Zaccarello, Executive Director of the Well Community. “Their faithful service to our members exemplifies their connection to our local community and their commitment to it. We’re so thankful for them and all the meals they’ve made with love!”
Are you looking for a way to make a difference with friends, family or a community group? Providing lunch for our members at the Community Life Center is a fun way to get involved together! Click here to learn more and sign up.