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Checkout Sunday Dinner @ FUMC

Sunday Dinner is a free, Sunday afternoon community dinner program designed to help those who are in need of a warm meal, or just a warm smile and some fellowship on a Sunday afternoon. Our original intent was to reach those who were homeless and/or seriously in need of a warm, well-balanced dinner. However, being in the Rochester suburbs we have less homeless, and more elderly. So, our guests tend to run about 80% elderly, who are probably there more for the fellowship than from a need for food, and 20% people who are in low-income or jobless, subsidized housing, situations who do need a good meal.

Our guests arrive around Noon for a well balanced sit-down (they sit down and we serve them everything and then clear it all away) dinner that we serve to them around 12:30p. Typically we serve around 45-50 people in the Fellowship Hall and deliver another 55-60 to people who are unable the get to the church for dinner.

Here is a typical “Sunday Dinner” Sunday for us:

9am Cooks arrive to start preparing the dinner

10am Setup crew comes in to set up the dining area

Noon Guests start arriving, Servers arrive, Deliveries get staged

12:15pm Deliveries get picked up

12:30pm Blessing, dinner serving starts, Cleanup crew arrives

1:00pm Everthing is served, cooks go home, some guests start to leave

1:15pm Most guests are gone, Servers are finishing cleaning up the dining area and putting tables and chairs away, vacuuming the floor

1:30pm Servers are done and gone

2:00pm Cleanup crew is finished washing and putting away all dishes and goes home

We have our volunteers divided into 6 groups:

Set-up – this is usually families that come in to set up tables and chairs and set the tables with tablecloths, napkins, silverware, glasses, salt & pepper, etc. We normally schedule 2-3 families for this and set up 8 tables with 8 seats at each table. They come down between services at 10am and set up the dining area. This job takes about 30 minutes.

Cooks – This is the group that plans, cooks and puts the food on the plates. They also take care of cleaning up the cooking area (oven, prep tables, etc). We usually schedule 6 people for cooking. We have planning meeting on the Monday evening before the dinner, and then they start prep on Sunday mornings around 9am. The cooks leave once all of the food is served and the cooking area is cleaned up, usually around 1pm.

Servers – These are the people who take care of our guests. We have 2-3 adults who supervise the dining area and then another 3-4 youths or other people who help with the serving. We have the servers arrive at noon. They spend from Noon – 12:30p getting drinks for people. We offer decaf coffee, tea, water, and juice (they love Cranberry Juice). We do a blessing around 12:25p and then the servers start serving the dinner. We use roller carts to bring out the soup or salad appetizer. Once that is finished, about half of the servers will clear those dishes while the other half starts serving the main course. We have a pass-through between our kitchen and dining area, so the servers go to the pass-through and takes 2 plates at a time to the tables. We find that this is faster than loading the plates onto serving carts. When the main course is finished they clear those dishes and serve the desserts from rolling carts. After the guests have gone, the servers clear all the tables and put the tables and chairs away, and vacuum the floor. Our guests usually finish around 1p – 1:15p and the servers are usually done and gone by 1:30p at the latest.

Clean-up – these are the folks who wash all of the dishes and put everything away. We use 4 people for cleanup. The servers will bring all of the dirty dishes to another pass-through near the dishwasher. The cleanup crew scrapes the dishes, loads them onto the dishwasher racks, runs them through the dishwasher, and puts them all away. The cleanup crew is also responsible for doing any pots and pans used by the cooks for preparing the meal, so they basically wash all of the dishes. They start at 12:30 and are usually done by 1:30-1:45p.

Deliveries – these are the people who pick up the dinners from the kitchen and deliver them to people who cannot come to the dinners. The cooks will stage these dinners – putting the main course in a 3-compartment Styrofoam closeable container, the appetizer and the dessert in separate, single serve soup or sandwich containers, and a piece of fresh fruit – all together in a plastic grocery bag. The delivery people come in between Noon – 12:15p and take the number of dinners they need and leave to do their deliveries. Once their deliveries are done they go home. We have found that families enjoy doing this and try use 8-9 families per Sunday, so that each family is delivering 5-7 dinners.

Greeters – these are the people who stand at the doors to welcome people to dinner. They start at noon and leave when we do the blessing around 12:30p.

Desserts – all of our desserts are home-made by the congregation. I put up monthly sign-up sheets, detailing what we are having for dessert, in the Narthex of the church where people can sign up to make desserts and drop them off in the kitchen the day of the dinners.

Volunteers are usually scheduled to work once every three months (once per Quarter), and Quarterly “team” listings are emailed and published in the Cross & Flame Newsletter.

If you would like to volunteer for Sunday Dinner or would just like more information about Sunday Dinner, you can call Mark Renfro @ 585-721-2513.