River’s Edge, Overmountain Cafe seek churches to help feed community’s hungry

Published 2:31 pm Thursday, June 25, 2020

From Staff Reports

During the sheltering in place order River’s Edge Community Church was feeding people daily, however, numbers rose drastically, jumping from 20 to 100 and spiking at 150. For a time the number leveled off to 60 to 80 daily, but, according to Sara Slagle of Overmountain Community Cafe, the last two weeks, the number of meals creeped up to 100, reaching 116 this week. The spike in numbers has caused a need for more volunteers, more food, and more storage space for the food.

“Realizing the  task of carrying a lot of food up from the pantry storage, a plan was made to utilize the youth/dining area for easy access for the meals.  When people were able to eat inside again, the room River’s Edge  would have used for distancing while dining is now storage for around 10,000 pounds of food,” said Slagle.

This pandemic has caused River’s Edge and Slagle to realize that it takes a community to feed a community.

“During this trying few months, nonprofits, a few churches, and agencies have made donations of money, given to-go containers, equipment, and food, Slagle shared. River’s Edge makes a weekly menu, which changes if food comes in that is perishable or not able to be stored, using what’s available at that particular time.

Sara Slagle, a member of Heartland Fellowship (who is waiting on an ordered freezer), gleans produce, baked goods, and deli items for the meals. The small, poorly equipped kitchen is a virtual bee hive of activity. While some are filling to-go boxes, others are prepping for the next meal and one of River’s Edge member/volunteers is slicing mozzarella cheese with a commercial meal slicer that she has purchased for the need. When the donated stove goes out, another is donated! God provides.

Slagle comes alongside as much as possible to help prepare these meals. This week she is preparing chicken pot pie for around 125, so that volunteers scramble to heat up leftovers from the day before. While there are a few churches donating money, food and supplies, Slagle wishes to see more get involved with this. River’s Edge and Overmountain are joining forces to raise funds for a community soup kitchen, with a storage room attached to store the increasing amount of food needed. River’s Edge gives out food boxes daily.

Slagle and her board had been trying to establish the “pay what you can” café in Elizabethton, before the pandemic, but when the numbers kept increasing, Slagle said she felt that a soup kitchen was the best answer to the growing problem.

In researching soup kitchens, Slagle said she learned that Morristown had one called Daily Bread, established in 1993 when an owner of a furniture store came in one morning to open for business and found a homeless man dead in his entryway.  He vowed then and there that as long as he was living, no one would die of starvation. He began providing sack lunches out of his furniture store, and eventually turned it into a Daily Bread Community Kitchen. Slagle has since visited his son, met his wife (who is still cooking) and met a volunteer who has a prison ministry.

She noted that this man also spoke to Josh Scalf, founder of Recovery Soldiers Ministry, and helped him in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Daily Bread has 23 churches financially supporting them, and 10 churches providing volunteers. Also, businesses, agencies, gardeners, and farmers have partnered with the agency.

Slagle knows what it’s like to be hungry. She remembers when there was only a can of evaporated milk in the refrigerator and a bag of cornmeal in the pantry. She also remembers being labeled “a kid from the projects” by classmates, when her dad left the coal mines of Kentucky to work for US steel in Gary, Ind., which soon had the biggest wildcat strike in history. During this time Slagle worked as a waitress in an Italian restaurant, and she recalls she and her brother and sister waiting up to see if someone ordered a pizza and didn’t pick it up, so they wouldn’t have to go to bed hungry.

Slagle says, “This image has played in my mind over and over. I feel that God was preparing me for this ministry.” Over the years  she has cooked in a youth camp in West Virginia serving three meals and two snacks for 10 days straight, served as a dietary manager position, as well as a Nutrition Educator in WIC. I realize now, my experiences have prepared me for this ministry,” Slagle said.

She noted that Karla and Darrin Smith and their team of volunteers are selfless workers.

“I’ve thought a lot about our struggles during COVID-19. I’ve thought a lot about the churches struggling when their four walls were closed to the public. Why can’t we take time to look at invisible walls we’ve built between churches,” Rick Jones, pastor at River’s Edge shared.

Jones wants to see churches in the community to come together for the good of the community.  He doesn’t want to see a church name over it. “He just wants us to come together to feed our community,” said Slagle.

If someone or a church is interested in being a part of the ministry, call, text or email Sara Slagle at 423-647-3535, saraslagle@embarqmail.com or Pastor Rick Jones at 423-213-0989.