Casserole Kitchen provides meals for those who are hungry
The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection on North Montgomery has been providing meals to those in need since the early 2000s, and they have had to adjust to a different style since the beginning of the pandemic in America last March.
The program is called Casserole Kitchen and volunteers from all over Starkville, and even Mississippi State University, come together to help give a hot meal every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. and every Saturday at 11 a.m.
Janet Downey was the head volunteer on Tuesday, and she was accompanied by Morgan Robinson who is a nutrition student at MSU, Jessie Sloan who is in the Montgomery Leadership Program at MSU, and John Robert Walker who is a student at Starkville High School.
“Once the University started back up [in the fall of 2020] is when we found some good help,” Downey said. “We pulled in the Day
One students to volunteer for some of their service hours, so some of us regulars didn’t have to work every time. We’re fortunate enough for us to have some nutrition students and Montgomery Leadership to come in and help.”
There are about six fulltime volunteers who have help operate the program in conjunction with the church.
They mostly make sure things run smoothly, and they are in charge of other community volunteers.
“Once the students leave for the semester, we would need more people to help out,” Downey said. “So once summer starts back, I don’t know if it will just be us regulars or if they’ll be opening it up to other groups.”
Prior to March 2020, the program was in-person, and it was a great place to sit down and enjoy a meal. Since then, they have had to make everything to-go and easily accessible to those who need it. Different parts of the meals are provided by other church groups, local restaurants, and
other community members.
“That has all been established through the years where different organizations and church groups have a certain assigned night of the month,” Downey said. “The food is delivered to us and we set it up, and we set it up from there.”
Being able to have a hot meal can make a world of difference to those who go without, and food insecurity is a huge problem in the community, and the pandemic definitely has not helped. The Casserole Kitchen is downstairs at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.