Local charitable organization, the Bread Shed, is offering a free hot meal to the food insecure through a program called Breaking Bread.
The meal is served at 12:30 p.m. every Sunday at the organization’s location of 203 North D Street, Poplar Bluff.
The Sunday meal is prepared by volunteers from the Bread Shed and local churches. It is served restaurant-style to an average of 250 people.
“In the course of a year, I will look into the faces of thousands of my neighbors,” said Director Jim Ward.
He remembers the first meal served by the nonprofit organization on a snowy Sunday in February 2010. They served about 40 people with donated foods and mismatched bowls and spoons. Everything had been brought by a men’s prayer group who felt a calling to feed the hunger they saw in the eyes of area children.
“We were a mix of denominations,” said Ward. “But we knew two things. There was hunger for food in our neighbors and there was a hunger in us to serve.”
The prayer group served more meals at a local housing authority with whatever food they could gather. Two months into its mission, the SEMO Food Bank began doing mobile food trucks and approached the new organization to be a sponsor.
That sponsorship allowed the Bread Shed to provide mobile food pantry services to Poplar Bluff, Ellsinore and Doniphan. They began a rotating schedule that took them to each city once per month.
The Bread Shed’s mission has expanded in the last 11 years. They have partnered with the Diaper Bank of the Ozarks to give away boxes of diapers to mothers in need. Its ABC Food Pantry program allows it to work with schools to identify families who might benefit from monthly food assistance and give meat, milk, eggs and bread to those who accept their offer.
Thanks to a donated camper rebuilt as a mobile shower, the Bread Shed offers showers to the homeless.
It also gives away clothes, toiletries, Bibles and haircuts.
“God put in us the desire to serve,” said Ward. He insists the Bread Shed does not give away food or clothing, though.
“We give out hope,” he said.
Anyone needing information, including a calendar of Bread Shed events, can contact the organization through Facebook, through its website at www.breadshed.org or by calling 573-712-7356. Callers should leave messages as the Bread Shed has no regular hours.