‘ALWAYS A NEED’
Eureka Rescue Mission feeds hundreds before Thanksgiving
Around 11 a.m. on Wednesday, the tables set up outside the Eureka Rescue Mission began to fill as dozens of people arrived for a Thanksgiving meal. By 1:00 p.m., the mission had served 310 meals.
Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, rolls and coffee were served to the many hungry people who sat outside in the morning chill, providing a valuable holiday respite for many of the city’s homeless and struggling residents.
“It’s heartwarming, it’s good to see smiles on people’s faces,” Matt Beauchamp, one of the Rescue Mission’s cooks, said. “I’m glad we’re still opening and serving the public, the homeless community, otherwise it’d be a hard year for them.”
Beauchamp, who has cooked for the Rescue Mission for two and a half years, and the rest of the Mission’s kitchen staff started preparing the meals on Sunday in the sweltering kitchen at 100 Second Street.
The meals were served by the mission’s in-house staff, as coronavirus dangers made allowing volunteers too risky, according to the mission’s executive director Bryan Hall.
“I don’t want anybody to get sick. If somebody comes in with COVID, we just don’t want to create a bad situation. So outside, we’re good. You know, they’re all spaced apart it’s out in the open air, we’re good to go,” Hall said.
Hall, Beauchamp and other cooks preparing Thanksgiving meals are graduates of the mission’s year-long residential, new life discipleship program, which Hall said had a 90% success rate reintegrating people back into healthy lives.
As the county edges closer to 10,000 cases, Hall noted that six or seven people he knew contracted coronavirus, but that none of them died and few showed symptoms.
Before the pandemic, California had the fourth-highest homelessness rate in the country, according to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, but the state ranked as No. 1 for the most severe housing cost burden.
The Thanksgiving free meal cookout has run every year since the Rescue Mission was founded in 1967.
Other annual Thanksgiving turkey dinner events include the Betty Kwan Chinn Foundation’s turkey delivery service that began this week, and St. Vincent de Paul’s dining facility on Third Street in Eureka will provide free meals from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. tomorrow. The St. Vincent’s meal service is expected to feed at least 200 people, according to Desiree Hill, who was helping the church prepare for the Thursday meals.
“(There’s) always a need,” Beauchamp said.
“It’s heartwarming, it’s good to see smiles on people’s faces. I’m glad we’re still opening and serving the public, the homeless community, otherwise it’d be a hard year for them.” — Matt Beauchamp, one of Rescue Mission’s cooks