It is just a normal Monday at Paducah’s Community Kitchen.
Guests file in and out, getting in line to have a meal that volunteers have prepared and served. But that lunch is not all that is available on this day to the more than 200 Kitchen guests.
In a corner of the main room near the Kitchen’s full-service laundry room, volunteer stylist Stacie Burton is spending her day off giving free haircuts to Kitchen guests.
After one haircut, Stacie sweeps hair from the cape and wishes the recipient good luck with his job interview that day, saying with a smile that she hopes that his new haircut will help impress.
Stacie has recently started volunteering in the corps of stylists that spend one Monday a month sending Kitchen guests back out into the community with fresh new hairdos.
“It’s very rewarding,” she says.
“The people are so nice and appreciative.”
In another moment, Tara Dawson holds her 8-month-old daughter up so she can watch her daddy, Tommy, get what Tara describes as his “first real haircut in three years.”
“Usually he just does it himself,” she says.
The Dawson Family just started revisiting the Community Kitchen for lunchtime meals since moving back to Paducah from nearby Melber.
“I’m glad the Kitchen is here,” Tara says.
“It helps—it really does.”
The Dawsons sit by Jessica Myers, who says she’s visited every day for a week to feed herself and her two toddlers.
“I’ve washed my clothes here before, too,” she says.
“The worst thing is hand-washing your clothes. I’ve done that a lot. It’s definitely a struggle with two kids.”
Nearby, Kristen Bickerstaff and Brian Wilson are also packing up the laundry that they’ve just done at the Kitchen for the first time. Brian knows a thing or two about having to hand-wash his clothes, too.
“We’ve done it in a bucket by hand and just string up a line to dry before,” he says.
“This is much easier.”
He says they’ll be bringing their laundry with them when they come to eat from now on.
At the end of the table, Vanessa and Nicky Reynolds wait for Nicky to have the chance to get a haircut from Stacie.
“We come two or three times a week here,” Vanessa says, adding that their local food pantry in LaCenter has closed recently, so they will probably need to visit the Kitchen more often to help make up for that loss.
“We have friends that come here too—sometimes we meet up with them.”
It is a loud, boisterous time, the lunch hours that come each weekday at the Community Kitchen, located on Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Guests talk to their friends, shout hello when a new face arrives, offer to watch each others’ kids while moms get food and share inside jokes with the volunteers who wipe down tables and chairs.
Also on this Monday, sandwiched between the entrance and the drink counter, the McCracken County Health Department is visiting with guests about the agency’s Kentucky’s Hands program for new and expectant mothers. Some of the women are eager to hear about a chance for some help during the stressful time. Some take information for family members or friends who might benefit.
Just one day prior, Community Kitchen Staff Member and Pastor Jim Trimble and his wife led guests in a weekly church service at the Kitchen, allowing them to worship and receive spiritual nourishment in a setting where they feel comfortable and safe.
And when the fall winds change into frigid winter temperatures that fall below 40 degrees, as Warming Center Coordinator, Jim will open the Kitchen’s doors overnight, providing much-needed shelter to those among us who have none.
“True, it’s our primary mission to demonstrate the love of our Lord Jesus Christ by feeding the hungry, and we do that by serving more than 70,000 meals each year, but we know that our guests often have other needs that can sometimes outweigh their empty stomachs,” says Executive Director Sally Michelson.
“While they are here eating, we have tried to capture every opportunity to help them out with those other issues.”
“For some, it’s access to a clean and safe shower facility, so we provide showers with soap and shampoo for them. Others need clean clothes, so we let them use our laundry room or we give them some new clothes from our donations.”
“We also know that for many, they just can’t get to the many services that our community has available to them, like the Health Department for medical information or social services, so whenever we can, we bring those organizations right out to the Kitchen.”
“We try to be a kitchen that feeds the whole soul,” Sally says.
A certified non-profit with no funding source other than donations, Sally says the Community Kitchen could do none of these things without help from the community.
“We are so blessed by everyone who donates to us, either with time, money, food or prayers,” she says.
“The ways in which everyone in this community comes together to help us fulfill our mission is just an incredible example of God’s love for His people.”
As the doors close on the start of this week at the Community Kitchen, volunteers sweep and mop floors and wash serving utensils, getting ready for another day tomorrow.
It is a day where only one thing is certain at the Kitchen—when the doors open, people will come to get help that they need, if that comes on a plate or otherwise.
