'Because they're hungry': St. Marks UMC in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä offers breakfast, sandwiches

Baker was referring to about 40 people who have been receiving breakfast bags and sandwiches at St. Marks every weekday from 8:30 to 9 a.m. Starting Thursday, people will be able to eat breakfast inside St. Marks, 900 Washington St. E., two times a week.

Breakfast bags

The Rev. Cindy Briggs-Biondi said her church began distributing the breakfast bags on Labor Day, a few days after the ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä feeding nonprofit Manna Meal announced it would no longer be serving breakfast.

The idea for the breakfast bags came after a community meeting with other churches and nonprofits, Briggs-Biondi said. The breakfast bags were “the Band-Aid that we came up with.� Other locations are also handing out the bags.

Traci Strickland, executive director of the Kanawha Valley Collective which has been providing food and coordinating distribution sites, said around 150 breakfasts and 80 lunches are being passed out Monday through Friday. On the weekends, about 120 total meals are being passed out.

After Manna Meal stopped serving in downtown ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä in September, Briggs-Biondi started adding peanut butter and jelly or lunch meat sandwiches to the breakfast bags.

“I committed St. Marks to doing the breakfast bags and the sandwiches without talking to anyone about it,� she said. “But I knew that I could do that because I knew that people would do it.�

Volunteer effort

After Sunday worship at St. Marks, congregants of all ages pack the bags with nonperishable items like toaster pastries, pudding, fruit cups and water.

On Wednesdays, people from St. Marks and other local churches come make and pack about 200 sandwiches in an hour, which typically lasts about a week. The sandwiches are frozen so they will keep. They are put in the breakfast bags and thaw by lunch time.

Briggs-Biondi said she’s had verbal support from the community and also donations of sandwiches from other churches and her son’s school.

Baker goes to Cross of Grace, a Lutheran church pastored by Briggs-Biondi’s husband. That church has started putting together overnight oats to add to the breakfast foods.

Indoor dining

Briggs-Biondi said the Band-Aid of breakfast bags will be needed for a while.

“When there’s a sudden cut in services, and there’s nothing else in place, it takes a long time to get all of the pieces needed,� she said.

On Thursday, St. Marks will launch their indoor dining program through the end of February. The dining room, accessible at the corner of Washington Street East and Dickinson Street, will be open from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. every Monday and Thursday with some breakfast options.

The breakfast bags and sandwiches will still be available every weekday morning.

“We wanted something that was long enough for people to come inside, sit down, eat, re st, be able to charge their phones for a little bit,� she said.

Initially, the sit-down breakfast will have options like toast and cereal, but Briggs-Biondi is hoping she can find volunteers to expand the meal to other hot food items like breakfast casseroles.

The dining room will be open Thanksgiving morning with Christmas and New Year’s Day yet to be determined.

'The least of these'

Briggs-Biondi said she feels like her church takes “very seriously� the words of Jesus. In the Bible, in Matthew 25:40, Jesus says, “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.�

St. Marks is already home to a transitional storage facility and shower service run by the Religious Coalition for Community Renewal. The church even has a statue on Washington Street East representing Jesus as an unhoused man asleep on a bench.

While there are challenges in providing services like this, Briggs-Biondi said the people who receive them are largely respectful of the church property.

“We have a really good relationship with folks,� she said. “People on the whole are really respectful of our property and our space.�

In fact, one unhoused woman, a congregant of St. Marks, who herself receives the breakfast bags and sandwiches, gave Briggs-Biondi money to buy bread for about half the sandwiches for a week.

“So many people only make particular assumptions about folks, and that’s a greater level of generosity,� Briggs-Biondi said, comparing it to the widow in the Bible who was praised by Jesus for giving out of her poverty rather than her wealth.

Briggs-Biondi is open to volunteers to staff the indoor eating facility, provide sandwiches or breakfast items and help out in other ways. Those interested can contact her at pastor@saintmarkswv.org.

She is accepting help from “whoever. [I] don’t care who you are, if you go to church or not.�

“Even though it’s here, and we have a lot of St. Markers involved, it’s not meant to be a St. Marks thing,� Briggs-Biondi said. “It’s a need, and we need to be able to do what we can for each other.�