Orangevale Churches Offer Food and Friendship at Weekly Meals

In a big display of generosity and caring for their neighbors, three churches in Orangevale  serve a hot meal each week to anyone who wants it. The churches began the meal program more than a decade ago to help people in need, but what they discovered instead was that they were offering community and friendship to visitors.

Redeemer Covenant Church on Main Avenue was the first to start the program. They have a plaque on the wall that says: Tuesday Night Dinner. 15 Years. 52,000 free meals served to the community.

“I think for more than half of us, it’s about the community. They really enjoy the community they find here and make friends, and then keep coming back,” said Lori Dunn, founder of the meal program. “And then some of them, like for all of us who have been doing it, we now know so many more people. I have good friends in the community that I never would have had. I go to Walmart, I go to Dairy Queen, and I see people I know from the dinner,” said Dunn.

On a recent Tuesday, the main dish was pasta fagioli — an Italian dish of pasta, ground turkey and sauteed spinach in a light tomato sauce. Guests had a choice of a green salad or coleslaw, dinner rolls and a choice of desserts including fudgy brownies and chocolate chip cookies. About 80 to 100 people come each week for the dinners from 6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. 

The meals are served cafeteria style, with guests going up to a table manned by volunteers who heaped servings onto plates. After that, guests sat down at tables that were filled with chatter from the young and old, veterans and homeless, teens and toddlers. Wherever you sat, you got a warm greeting. As is custom, once everyone was served, a call would go out to anyone who wanted seconds. Many did.

On that Tuesday, friendly Dave was talking to everyone at his table. The retired warehouse worker enjoys playing pickleball and has been coming to the dinners for more than a decade. He makes sure everyone feels welcome.

Lori Dunn said she and her friend Donna were church members and had an idea to do something more for the community. At first they tried a motorhome delivering pizzas to a poorer neighborhood in Orangevale. They then invited them to the church’s first dinner in January 2010.

“We have families, and we have older people, and then we have quite a few that are homeless in cars or on their bikes. It changes all the time,” Dunn said.

On Wednesdays, it’s First Baptist Church of Orangevale’s turn for meal service. Here, guests go up to a kitchen counter where they get a hearty welcome from the jolly retired ladies who volunteer. “Welcome! Come on in. What can I get you?”

That night the dinner was cheeseburgers, potato salad and a salad bar of assorted vegetables. One of the ladies said the meals vary each week depending on the chef. Sometimes it’s a barbecue in the summer. Once a month it’s pizza. But they always make sure to have ice cream each week — maybe because this church has a lot of teenagers attending the dinner, gathered together at a table busily talking to each other.

“The thing I like most about it is that it gives everyone a chance to come in and have a meal,” said Pastor Ryan Jacobs. 

On Thursday nights, Divine Savior pulls out all the stops for their dinner, helped by the 150 volunteers who help out on a rotating schedule. Guests sit at tables with blue checkered tablecloths, cloth napkins and silverware with a fresh flower centerpiece. The volunteers who help each week serve brimming plates to the guests. That night it was chili mac, garlic bread and green salad. Volunteers pushed drink carts around serving lemonade, coffee and milk. 

Mary Sue was the smiling greeter who made sure everyone was taken care of. “I keep everyone in line,” she laughed.

Marcus Arnold is the coordinator of Divine Savior’s meal program, which was started in 2017. 

“I told Mary, my wife, to us, the beauty of it all is watching people laugh and she said ‘maybe that may be one of their few places each day they get to go and just laugh and visit.’ And it really puts a perspective on our own problems, where we may get down about things that really are much smaller than the people that we meet at our meal. Fellowship is number one. That's really rewarding for all of us.”

Arnold says people who haven’t been to a church dinner may get the impression they are for the homeless, but he says they get visitors from all walks of life, including busy families.

“There's people there making $70,000-$80,000 a year, and it's just that money's tight at the end of the month. Maybe their engine broke down that week. It's whoever wants to come and has a need, period. Whether it's physically, health, financially, we're there to help,” Arnold said.

Each of the churches serve about 100 visitors each day from 6 p.m. - 6:45 p.m. and has a budget for the meals but they also get donations. Organizers at each church are grateful that non-members want to volunteer and help as well. 

“We've gotten involved in people's lives. We’ve helped them put the roof on their house, or helped them do a marriage ceremony, or helped them bury someone that died. We help them with all kinds of things that we can,” Dunn with Redeemer Covenant said. “It's really been a blessing, and it's been great as a church. I now know people from church that I didn't know as well by serving with them. We've had people from the community come and just say, ‘Hey, I see you having this dinner. Can I help?’ So people come just to help, just to serve.”

• Judy Farah