HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Church has been giving out food since June of 2020. The church helps feed the community two Saturdays out of the month - rain or shine.
"So, we are back in the kitchen where our members are preparing the food to go out to the public," said Candice Howell, a youth leader at Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Church.
Meals are prepared to make their way to local organizations, church and community members.
"The Harris Home, we also have our 'Have I Hope' Organization that we are distributing boxes to, and then also we're packaging up over there for our seniors and other members of the community who cannot get here to us today. So, we're making sure that we can get the lunches to them," said Howell.
Now it's time for volunteers to take their positions, it's almost time to pass out hundreds of lunches.
"We have packaged these up from our kitchen staff. We're taking these out front to the awning, and we will distribute these 315 plates to members of the community that will come through via drive-up service," said Howell.
Technology helps make this drive-thru service seamless.
"So, right now we're using our walkie-talkie system to where brother Felton is greeting the cars and getting an accurate count on how many plates they'll need so that at the doors, we are ready to go when they come up to make things as efficient as possible," said Howell.
The church puts ingredients together to feed people hot meals on the second Saturday of each month but they also give out food boxes full of ingredients so people can make what they'd like and feed their families.
"On the third Saturday we have our food box giveaway, so we're here twice a month on Saturdays given out hot lunches and non-perishable food items, and our food boxes."
Just as the name of the church suggests, the members are missionaries.
Their goal is to be there for the community but where does the food come from?
"Some is from donations from community partners, even our members, people will call the church to say, 'hey, what can I do to get involved?' and so we do have members that might sponsor a hot lunch for a month or they will sponsor certain gift card," said Howell.
As the line of people waiting for their meals simmers down, volunteers start to gather leftover boxes to again, take to local organizations, church and community members.
I got to ride along with Howell as she hand-delivered some of those meals.
"The church as a building, we have not been able to fellowship and be together in over a year. So we want to be able to not only fellowship with our people but to continue to support our people because the church is in us, it's not just what's at 315 Winchester Road. We are, we are the church," said Howell.