By Neshmia Malik
While summer is approaching and many people have plans of basking in the summer weather, ten local churches in the Mahomet area have made it a priority to provide lunches for the community over the last decade.
For ten weeks of summer, churches in Mahomet prepare and serve lunch at the Candlewood pool house, supplied by Bud Parkhill.
“Every church decides on their menu, coordinates their week, and gathers their volunteers,” said Linda Meachum, director of the yearly summer lunch program.
The local churches provide the food while utensils and paper products are funded by the Lions Club of Mahomet.
The program was first initiated to serve children in need but has evolved into a community event embraced by everyone.
“It’s open to anyone. There’s no questions asked, if you want to have lunch, you can have lunch,” said Meachum.
Brian Romanowski, the pastor at First Baptist Church, mentioned the change in the crowd of people who come to receive lunches over the past 10 years.
“When we began it started off small. While there is a wide range of ages, there are a lot of kids, and our target audience was mainly kids, and now it has grown to such a wide range of people. We get kids, families and especially the elderly population,” said Romanowski.
Meachum mentioned that last year, the churches served about 3,000 lunches, and that was an off-year, usually expecting many more.
“We go from 30 a day to 9 a day, it really depends on many factors,” said Meachum.
Before the Coronavirus hit, the facility was open for people to enjoy their meals and the pool was available for kids to swim in, increasing the turnout.
Meachun mentioned that last year the meals were strictly take-out and now will probably have a combination of take-out and dine-in. The local Domino’s restaurant has offered discounted rates for Churches to have a pizza day for one of the lunch days.
While the event is focused on distributing meals, the local libraries come out and set up tables for students to read, check out books and buy different accessories.
Besides eating, reading and spending time with friends and family, Jason Schifo, Pastor at Community Evangelical Free Church sees this time as an opportunity to meet the people they are serving while also getting to know them.
He mentioned how he wanted to redefine the term “ministry” in a way that isn’t simply for the church, but for fostering important relationships—which he sees the summer lunches as a perfect time to indulge in.
“The thing that makes me feel so positive is that this is an activity that is shared by all the churches of Mahomet, and it’s not often you can get everyone together on the same page,” said Meachum.
