emergent|SA

Soup Kitchen, Part IV(?)

Here is some more detailed information from John Griffin:

WHAT: Soup Kitchen ministry to the homeless organized by Tom and Terri Weeks from Gateway Church

WHEN: Second and third Saturdays each month

WHO: Older teens (15+) and adults – men especially needed. Not recommended for children or younger teens. It’s a very rough area. Ladies are encouraged to stay close to a male at all times or they could be targeted for harassment because most of the homeless in the area are males.

WHERE: Serving happens under the bridge at Commerce and Frio downtown – right next to the SAMM Shelter

HOW TO GET THERE: Several of us meet at 11:30am at Gateway Church down by Lackland AFB and caravan together. If you would like, you can meet us there, or just meet us downtown. We generally arrive downtown at about 12:00 – 12:15. Here are directions to each location:

TO GATEWAY (meet @ 11:30am):

Take 410S. Exit Medina Base Road and take a left (go inside the loop). The first stop light is Five Palms. Take a left on Five Palms and the church is right there to your left. The church address is 6623 Five Palms, 78242 if you want to MapQuest it.

TO OUR LOCATION UNDER THE BRIDGE (meet @ 12:15pm):

From the North:

Take 281 S. Merge onto IH-35 S/US81 S. Take Exit 155C toward W Houston St. Turn slight left onto N Laredo St. Turn right onto W Martin. Turn left onto N Medina. Park at the San Antonio Employees Credit Union. We’ll be right under the bridge across the street. The address to the credit union is 123 N Medina, 78283 if you want to MapQuest it.

From the South:

From Hwy90, take 35N exit and veer to the left. The highway will split. Stay to the right and take the upper level. Exit Durango. The road turns to the right. Go to the first stop light at Santa Rosa and take a left. Go to Commerce St and take another left. You’ll go under the highway. Just before you go over the bridge at Frio, you can veer to the right to go around the bridge. You’ll see the San Antonio Employee’s Credit Union off to the right. Just part in that parking log and look for us across the street under the Frio St bridge.

HOW IT WORKS: Tables are set up and we serve food and drinks. Try to just be friendly. A lot of people “throw stuff” at the people there – not many treat them like valuable people. Call them sir and ma’am. Tracts are available for distribution, but don’t push them at people. I personally wait until asked before I give them one. Just get to know people – hear their stories – and love them because God loves them. If given an opportunity to share the Gospel verbally, that’s a bonus.

MAY I BRING FOOD / DRINKS:  It’s not necessary, but if you’d like, you can bring food or snacks. It will certainly not go to waste. Bring something you would like to eat, but also make sure it’s pretty “generic” and easy to handle. If you make sandwiches, use white bread. If you bring something that requires utensils to eat, bring some plastic utensils and bowls or plates. Don’t get too fancy (chicken panini with pesto). Try to make something less glamorous but more widely liked (ham and cheese on white). You might also bring fruit, chips, cookies, brownies, tacos, etc. Don’t use anything that needs refrigeration (mayonnaise) unless it’s in the small packs. Often, they’ll put sandwiches in their bags and eat them later. We don’t want to give anyone food poisoning. Drinks are always needed. Water is preferred, but sodas and juice are also good. Please bring individually-packed drinks so we won’t need cups. If you have a cooler, it’s good to ice down the drinks before we pass them out. As hot as it gets in San Antonio, there’s not much better than a cold bottle of water.

HOW MUCH SHOULD I BRING: As much as you want. There are several hundred people there, so you won’t be able to feed them all yourself, but if everyone brings enough for 25-50 people, we’ll get everyone taken care of.

WHAT ELSE IS NEEDED: We also pass out clothes and toiletry packages. A toiletry pack includes things like toothbrushes, toothpaste, socks, deodorant, and maybe some coupons for McDonalds. Other “luxury” items for the homeless include backpacks, clothes and shoes. If you’d like, you can bring Bibles, but honestly, most people already have them. They’re often sold to discount book stores for beer money. But, you might keep a few in case you come across a “special” person who you think will really cherish it. 

SHOULD I GIVE MONEY: Never give money to the homeless. It’s a very real possibility that they will use it to buy alcohol or drugs. You’re also putting them at risk. Even if they don’t mess with that stuff, they could be mugged by others who do. Homeless on homeless violence is very common.

Soup Kitchen Anyone?

John Griffin sent this along for us to mull over;
(John, thanks for doing the homework for us)

The soup kitchen we talked about the other night happens the 2nd and 3rd Saturday of each month. So in May, it’s the 14th  and the 21st. We set up under the bridge at Commerce - right next to the SAM Shelter downtown – near UTSA.We meet there around 12 noon, though we’re sometimes running a few minutes behind. It usually takes a half hour to hour to run out of food. Hopefully, we’ll have more food to take this time, so maybe we’ll be able to hang out a little longer.

They generally have a big pot of soup prepared. If anyone would like to make some additional food, that would be great. If people can’t go for whatever reason, they can always make a big pot of soup or a bunch of sandwiches or whatever and send them down with others. Snacks are always good, too (cookies, chips, etc). If people don’t have time to prepare anything, they can always come and serve though – it’s not a prerequisite or anything.

They often take clothes down there as well. If anyone in the group would like to donate some that would be great. Shorts and short sleeve shirts are especially needed right now. Sadly, when people give us clothes to take down, they often just throw all their old 80’s wear into a box. They get a lot of really warm shirts, long flowing dresses, etc. They need good, durable stuff that can withstand being worn for about three weeks straight -especially clothes for guys. Ladies seem to be more willing to donate, so there’s always a shortage of guy clothes. It’s also good to put together kits with soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste. Those items are always needed. If anyone has an old backpack, that will be like Christmas for someone. Many of them carry around tons of bags with their stuff in them. Giving them a backpack is a big help to them.

If people have older kids, it might be OK to bring them. I take my 15 year old. But it can get a little chippy.'

So, that's a concrete option for our group to talk about.