Our Daily Bread continues to serve through challenging times
Apr. 10—Longtime volunteers have continued to meet the needs of Enid residents facing food insecurity during a global pandemic by serving hot meals at local soup kitchen Our Daily Bread.
While demand for meals climbed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Enid, the long-running kitchen was forced to close its building's doors for indoor dining because of health safety concerns.
Our Daily Bread was forced to close entirely for two weeks in September due to a COVID-19 exposure at the soup kitchen.
Our Daily Bread's director, Val Ross, said he's anxious to open back up entirely and plans to reopen the building's dining hall by late May or June if all goes well with the handling the virus in the coming weeks.
"I've missed the camaraderie that we get when (patrons are) in here," Ross said. "I care so deeply about all these people, and when I don't see them, it concerns me."
Change on the horizon
Doors to the dining hall now remain locked as patrons stand outside to receive their clamshell, styrofoam boxes of hot meals.
Our Daily Bread volunteers, wearing masks along with gloves, fill the boxes with cooked food in a line along rows of tables inside.
More volunteers prepare the meals from food donated by the Enid community, local businesses, grocery stores and the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. Our Daily Bread purchases anything else, Ross said.
One day last week saw 500 meals handed out, while earlier this week, volunteers gave 250 — likely because it was the beginning of the month when people get their paychecks, Ross said. Daily numbers tend to rise at the end of the months.
"Our numbers are just so sporadic lately," he said. "You just never know."
According to Ross, 12.5% of Enid's residents experience food insecurity, at least according to figures from 2000.
He estimated Our Daily Bread, which began in the late-1970s, serves a quarter of those people, some from the homeless community or those without enough money for lunch.
Residents otherwise might go to other kitchens or pantries around town, but some are shut-ins unwilling to leave the house.
"I know we can reach more people," he said, "I just gotta figure out how," such as starting to work with local mobile delivery services like Meals on Wheels that are also volunteer-run.
The nondenominational program's volunteers come from churches all around Enid. Many have been serving meals for at least a decade.
While one group of volunteers arrives by 10 a.m. to start filling meal boxes, a first group has started making meals by 6 a.m.
Julie Kimber, who retired last spring and has volunteered at Our Daily Bread for 11 years, comes in at 5:30 every morning along with Janna Randolph and her husband to get the meat and other ingredients started.
By 11, Kimber still was in the building, having started taking donated chicken pieces out of bags, which had been stored in half of one of the refrigerators, to be reheated for Thursday's meals.
"But this is something I believe in," she said.
Soup kitchens like Our Daily Bread across the country are experiencing the same difficulties during the pandemic, Ross said, of serving only to-go meals while their numbers increase and their volunteer pool shrinks.
Our Daily Bread was working with about 75 volunteers before COVID.
Ross said that number has now fallen to around 34, and it'd take twice that many people to reopen the dining hall with minimal stress.
By the end of the day, volunteers had prepared, boxed and donated 260 meals — "a slow day," Ross called it.
"Tomorrow will be different," he said.
To volunteer with Our Daily Bread, contact Ross at ODBread@att.net or call (580) 242-5718. Volunteers must be 18 years old or older.
Monetary donations to support the soup kitchen can be made payable to Our Daily Bread and mailed to St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, 110 N. Madison, Enid, OK 73701.
Ewald is copy editor and city/education reporter for the Enid News & Eagle.
Have a question about this story? Do you see something we missed? Send an email to aewald@enidnews.com.
