Semi-monthly community meal keeps going during COVID with meals to go

LOGAN — Loaves and Fishes is a community meal that brings people together for – as their flyer says – food, friendship and connections. Because of COVID-19 that could not happen. So, the organizers adapted to a grab-and-go type meal.

On KVNU’s For the People program on Thursday, coordinators Amy Anderson and Emily Malik were our guests. Anderson said they had to rethink how to keep the service going but do it safely.

“We’ve had a couple of pauses, we’ve had some times where we’ve come back to do the meals. But we have not had a sit-down meal in First Presbyterian, which is the church that allows us to rent their commercial kitchen and their fellowship space.

“We’ve not had a meal sit-down since last February. I’m desperately missing that opportunity to break bread around a common table with people, but we’re doing the best that we can,” Anderson said.

Malik, who spearheads the meal planning, talked about the challenges of transitioning the meals.

“It’s been a challenge, but it’s been a good challenge. First of all, we didn’t know how many people we would expect to be serving during the pandemic. We had the pause in the beginning of the pandemic, then we had another pause as the cases spiked and we did some meals in between and we’ve started back up.

We’ve been pretty consistent with right around 200 meals per Saturday that we’re doing grab-and-go style,” Malik explained.

The meals are held free of charge on the first and third Saturday of each month from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 178 West Center in Logan. There will be a meal this Saturday.

Anderson said they can always use volunteers and especially coming up on April 3rd. It is General Conference weekend for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, plus spring break for schools so they may be short-handed.

Those interested can call Amy at (435) 414-0340 or go to LoganLoavesandFishes.org.

AUDIO: Amy Anderson and Emily Malik talk to Jason Williams on KVNU’s For the People on 3-18-2021

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