GREAT FOOD

Download latest Press Release (May 2020)

Soup Kitchen

TUESDAYS 4:30-6:30pm (new time)
FRIDAYS 3:30-5:00pm

Tuesday Soup Kitchen takes place beginning at 4:30pm on Tuesdays. Simple meals are prepared at St. James using donated food items and then packaged by volunteers for grab-and-go bags, usually about 50-100 meals every Tuesday. The number of volunteers needed for Tuesday Soup Kitchen remains limited in order to ensure safe practices.

To find out more about volunteer options at Tuesday Soup Kitchen contact Ellory Smith at smithellory@gmail.com

Friday Soup Kitchen happens every Friday beginning at around 3:30pm until 5:00pm. Volunteers have re-organized the cooking and the distribution of meals in order to comply with safe practices, limiting volunteers to a minimum and requiring safe distancing, masks, gloves, and frequent hand washing. But the meal service continues nonetheless and has remained popular with our unhoused neighbors Volunteers distribute between 70 and 100 home-cooked meals every week.

To learn more about volunteering for Friday Soup Kitchen, contact Father Jon Feuss at jfeuss@stjla.org.

Food Pantry

THURSDAYS 8:00-9:00AM

Thursday Food Pantry continues to distribute about 140 bags of food to people from the neighborhood around St. James. About three-quarters of the bags contain groceries and supplies for people living with a kitchen, and the other one-quarter contain ready-to-eat single-serving foods for people who do not have access to a kitchen (mostly people experiencing homelessness).

Volunteers come in on Wednesday, generally from 7:45 to 9:45 a.m., to prepare the bags. A team of volunteers then distributes the bags on Thursday mornings beginning at 8 a.m.

To learn more about volunteering for Food Pantry, contact Cathy Helm at catherinehelm2424@gmail.com.

Shower of Hope

SATURDAYS 9:00AM-1:00PM

Every Saturday St. James serves as host for the Shower of Hope Project in the parking lot between the church and the school. Over forty people living on the street around St. James are able to get a hot shower, clean clothes, and a hot breakfast. Another twenty people come just for the safe setting and good food.

The showers are housed in a portable van, brought into the church parking lot at around 8am. The van is an ingenious device containing four private stalls requiring just a garden hose hookup and a regular electrical outlet to function. The Shower of Hope team manages the van, including complete sanitation between every shower.

Volunteers from St. James provide hot breakfast, safe access to restrooms, a charging station for cell phones, and clean donated clothes from our Donated Clothing Shed.

As with all Great Food events at St. James, we limit the number of volunteers at the Shower event in order to ensure safe practices during the pandemic. To learn more about volunteering for the Shower Project at St. James, click here.

TO DONATE CLOTHING: We can receive donations only on Saturdays between 9am and 1pm in the parking lot.

Our greatest needs:

men’s pants, men’s comfortable walking shoes, men’s short and long sleeve t-shirts

socks

blankets

sweaters, jackets

WE ARE NOT ABLE TO ACCEPT CHILDREN’s CLOTHING OR WOMEN’s CLOTHING.

Wrapping up the Shower Event on a Saturday afternoon:

The new Donated Clothing location, known affectionately as The J-Shed after Justin and Joelle, the two volunteers who helped set it up, with help from Scotty Hanna, St James Eagle Scout candidate.