By Kiara Doyal, The Seattle Medium
Last Wednesday, Nov. 12, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Baptist Church kicked off a new weekly program offering meals and food support to the community and anyone who could use the help.
“This is the first time it is happening in our church, and it is not only for church members,” said Senior Pastor Rev. Dr. Linda M. Smith. “People can come dine in and eat, or they can also take food with them. We also have care packages to take home with them in addition to the meal.”
Every Wednesday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Baptist Church in Renton, the community is welcomed to come enjoy hot meals served by volunteers and church members.
“Particularly during these next months, we are serving hot meals because it is cold,” said Smith. “We have spaghetti, chili and beef stew, with rolls and salad as sides. Then we try to have a dessert and water to drink, so it is all pretty basic. But we don’t always have to include meat, for those who don’t like meat. So if we have spaghetti with meatballs, they can choose to have it with or without the meatballs.”
With the current state of our government and growing concerns about food access for low-income families, the church felt this was the right moment to launch a new meal program to support those in need.
“It has always been on our agenda (to feed the community), but when they reduced the SNAP benefits, we decided that it would be a good opportunity for us to be able to reach out and help people who might be struggling for a meal,” added Smith. “And we also realized that even with the SNAP program, with the high cost of food, people still can’t buy as much as they used to. And in the care boxes, there is a couple of days of food in there for them.”
Although Smith has been the pastor at MLK for only a few years, she has an extensive background working with marginalized communities in the area.
“I have been the senior pastor here for three years. But before, I worked and still work to house the homeless downtown, and here in Renton, I created a center of hope in the old city jail,” Smith said. “So I have been doing this kind of work and reaching out to help people for 20–25 years.”
The weekly meal and food program is run entirely by church members and community volunteers, who dedicate time each week to support families facing food insecurity.
“The volunteers shop for the food items and help get all of the care packages together,” Smith said. “And then we have volunteers who actually prepare the food and help out with food service.”
Since the program is still in its early weeks, Smith said they are focused on building relationships and partnerships with local businesses and organizations to reach as many people in need as possible.
The length of the weekly food and meal program is simple — it will continue for as long as the community needs it.
“We don’t have an exact timeline of when it is going to end. We plan on just keeping it going as long as the demand is there,” said Smith. “The response we have had has surprised me so far. Last week we probably served about 25 meals, but since that day I have started to get a lot of calls,” Smith said. “So I know that the word is getting out, and I expect that this upcoming week we are going to double the meals that we served in our first week.”
Being able to offer the weekly food and meal program to the community brings Smith immense joy, and she said that as a child of God, this is exactly what faith communities should be doing.
“It is the best feeling. As people in faith communities, you are called to walk alongside the most vulnerable feet, those who are cold, hungry and naked. What we are doing is really just carrying out the mission of what the church is supposed to do,” Smith said. “I love it. Reaching out to people who may be struggling makes me feel wonderful. You give life to people. We can tell people we love them all we want, but love is tangible.”
Looking ahead, Smith believes that additional resources are key to sustaining the weekly food and meal program for as long as it is needed.
“Of course, financial resources to help purchase the food for the community would best support us,” Smith said. “We are living off of individual donations, and we will try and do as much as we can with that, but any help that we can get is certainly always appreciated.”
Smith wants the community to know that MLK Jr. Memorial Baptist Church is here to support everyone.
“We want to help people as much as we can in whatever way we can. We want everyone to know that if they are out there struggling, that we are here and that they can come on Wednesdays to get a meal,” Smith said. “Our goal is to just be a visible sign of God’s love and to help people.”
