Boston Rescue Mission: Sunday Community Dinner

Every Sunday afternoon, the Boston Rescue Mission invites volunteers to provide a special meal for both the residents at the Mission as well as hungry people on the streets. Volunteers have free reign of the entire meal, everything from designing the menu, shopping for the ingredients, to executing and serving the meal. All in the span of about 3 hours!

It’s challenging, laborious, and stressful at times. However, it’s also super fun and tremendously rewarding. There’s something really special about being able to personally serve the hungry people who come here looking for a hot meal. Many of the diners are very gracious and personally thank the volunteers for their efforts as well as the delicious meal.

Here’s an inside look at the flurry of activity (sometimes mildly chaotic!) that happens in the 3 hours preceding one of these crazy meals!

Sunday afternoon right after church, around 12:45PM, we drive over to Costco to shop for groceries. We know that it takes about half an hour to drive to the Boston Rescue Mission, so we usually split up into two “shopping teams” to speed up the process. If we have time, we’ll grab a quick bite to eat at Costco.

2:30PM Arrive at the Boston Rescue Mission, ready to cook!
We only have 2 hours to execute food to feed over 100 people, so usually we get right to work!

2:45PM: Prep Meat and Vegetables
The Boston Rescue Mission is located right in the heart of Boston, where real estate is scarce. As a result, it has a pretty tiny urban kitchen too! In fact, it’s so crowded inside the kitchen that volunteers spill out into the eating area in order to find room to slice, dice, and chop!

There’s tons of prep work to do – everything from cutting potatoes to seasoning and wrapping bacon around the pork loins.

3:30PM: Start Baking Pork Loins
We’ve stuck to the one recipe that we’ve executed successfully on large scale – bacon wrapped pork loin. The bacon protects the pork from drying out and also adds a nice boost of flavor! Plus, you can cook this on large scale pretty easily.  Check out the full recipe here!

3:30PM: Put Potatoes in the Oven!
They have these huge commercial ovens that can cook trays and trays of potatoes at once!
Here’s all the pork loin, stacked up ready to be baked.

4:15PM Take pork out of oven and start slicing
As the 4:30 deadline draws closer and closer, you can feel the energy rise inside the tiny kitchen. Is the buttered corn on the stove? YES! Is the salad ready? YES! Make sure to check the pork loin to see if it’s done! Can someone lay out the cookies?
4:30 – Dinnertime for BRM Residents
And then suddenly – BAM! – it’s 4:30PM, and the first wave of diners start pouring in. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t show any pictures of the diners, many of whom are undergoing various treatment programs at BRM. However, here’s a picture of the volunteers passing out the meal we made.

5:00PM – Doors open to the public
After the 4:30PM crowd leaves, the shelter opens the door to the public. Any homeless person can come off the streets to enjoy a nice, warm meal.

This is the largest crowd of the night (usually around 60-80 people). Many of these people are quite hungry. It was both eye opening and humbling to serve them.

We had a rule that no one could get seconds until everyone had been served at least once. The diners were all very, very respectful of the rule. So respectful, in fact, that I almost thought they didn’t want seconds.

Boy, was I wrong! The moment we announced, “we are serving seconds now,” the ENTIRE room jumped up and got back into line.

People were hungry, yet polite and respectful of their fellow diners.

I was both touched and saddened, realizing how often I take food for granted.

Here’s the average plate we served: maple bacon wrapped roasted pork loin, buttered corn, oven roasted potatoes, and mixed salad greens. Good, hearty, and warm food that was delicious, satisfying, and reasonably easy (for amateurs!) to execute on large scale.
 
Observations
It’s quite eye opening to serve at a homeless shelter. Though some of the visitors may resemble the disheveled look that we associate with “the homeless”, most of the people who come look absolutely normal. They are clean, well-shaven, polite, and intelligent. Some have just had a string of bad luck in their lives. Many are super friendly, and totally happy to chat about all sorts of topics.

Every time I’ve served there, diners have come up to us and thanked us for the wonderful meal. They are appreciative, polite, and friendly. Of course, there’s the occasional complainer, but then, you find those sorts of people in all walks of life.

I’ve also learned a bit about cooking large scale. Forget trying to achieve a gorgeous crust on all the potatoes or a lovely medium cooked pork. It’s just not going to happen. You have to execute everything in two hours and then keep it warm in order to serve people from 4:30PM all the way to 7:00PM. Of course the pork is going to be well done. Of course the potatoes will eventually starts to “steam” and lose their crispiness.  

But don’t worry about such trifle things! It’s really OK!

For many of these people, this Sunday meal is probably the best meal they are having all week.