Employees Prepare Meals For The Hungry

Karl Bates poured rice into a 20-gallon pot of boiling water, then stirred 28 pounds of ground beef simmering in a nearby cooker.

Behind Bates, other volunteers opened bags of flour tortillas, layering them on foil-covered trays bound for a hot oven.

"We'll have enough rice and beans for the burritos, but we may have to go easy on the salsa," Geoffrey Mock, editor of the Duke Today "News" section, told the crew in the kitchen.

The eight cooks in the kitchen at Urban Ministries of Durham were Duke employees who work in communications. They gather at 11 a.m. the second Sunday of each month to provide lunch for anyone who comes to eat.

"It's a highpoint of my month," said Bates, director of research communications in Duke's Office of News and Communication. "Cooking with 10-burner stoves and giant vats is a blast, and it is fulfilling to feed so many people who are sincerely grateful for it."

Urban Ministries of Durham serves up to 300 people during each sitting, three times a day. The number of clients has increased steadily over the past several years. "About half of the people we serve are not homeless but are too poor to eat well," said Faye Morin, volunteer coordinator for Urban Ministries. "These meals stretch their meager budgets."

The communicators began cooking at Urban Ministries in 2008 when staff members from the Office of News and Communications replaced the annual departmental holiday feast with a service project: providing a spaghetti meal to neighbors in need.

"It was a great experience," said Mock, He helped organize the effort. "We saw the need and wanted to continue."

The office extended an invitation to other Duke communications professionals to join in a monthly effort.

Forrest Norman, senior writer for Duke Law School communications, got involved to combine service with collegiality. "I've gotten to know some of my fellow Duke communicators better over a vat of spaghetti or chili here than on the job," he said.

Today, 20 to 30 communicators pitch in each month to raise the $230 needed for food; up to 10 gather each month to cook and serve. The Duke communicators have served about 5,000 meals in nearly three years. 

On a recent Sunday, as the hands of a clock inched toward 12:30 p.m., team members took their places at the long metal serving table, passing tortillas along for cheese, beans, rice, beef and salsa.

"The hot meal is nice because it gives a sense of normalcy in an abnormal life," said Denise Dickenson, who ate her first meal at the shelter nine months ago. "But what you remember are the smiling faces and the feeling that people care enough to come help."