Hot meals not only feed hungry people, but can feed the soul. That’s the mission behind a ministry at the First Baptist Church called “Feeding Friends” that serves up hot meals every Thursday night.

“We started having meals just two Thursday nights a month. The second year, we realized we could do it every week. Our goal was to feed people who have needs. Some of them are people who really needed something to eat, and some of them just needed fellowship. We had some people who were lonely and they came and ate were able to be with other people,”

Shortly after they started Food Lion began offering the meat, bread and cakes to the ministry. Volunteers from First Baptist pick up the donated food on the weekends.

“We decided that we could grind the meat and have mostly ground beef meals. We froze the other meat they gave to us so that people could have something to take home with them,” Morgan said.

The group bought freezers to store the donated products for the soup kitchen ministry.

Morgan said there are many different types of volunteers who help out in the program.

“We have volunteers who go to the stores on the weekends to pick up the food. We have people who come in to grind up the meat. Then we have people who come in and cook. We decided that rather than having the same people doing the cooking all the time, we would try to have as many people as would like to participate, so that nobody would experience burn out. We have a pretty large number of cooks, so that most people who cook only do it every other month,” Morgan said.

There are job descriptions for everyone who signs up to help, from serving the plates to washing dishes, drying dishes, manning the drink table, and hosts overseeing the dining room.

Morgan said they put bread and many types of sweets on a table for people to take home with them when they leave. They use to put the iced cakes out to, but they became so popular they have now have to do a drawing each week to see who gets to take the cakes home.

“They were like a treasure. People would get a cake and hold it like it was a treasure. They were just delighted to get it. But we found that they would wait in line and the same people were getting the cakes every week. That’s when we decided to have a drawing. Everything we do is a work in progress,” she explained.

The ministry also gives away any of the meat that they receive from Food Lion that they don’t use for cooking. They also package up take-out containers so that they not only feed people the night they come to the church, but hopefully, Morgan said, they can have another meal on another night from the church.

The meal starts at 5:15 p.m. every Thursday night. Mount Airy Fire Chief Benny Brannock usually comes in to do a devotion before the meal, Morgan said. He is a member of the church and is also on the soup kitchen committee.

“The group has become like family. We have new people all of the time and we have some people who come some times, and then don’t come at other times. We have a core of people who are there every week. Everybody cares about everybody else.”

Last year several ministers were invited by the pastor of the church, Roger Gilbert, to consider whether their churches would like to help. Two churches stepped forward, First Presbyterian and Calvary Baptist churches. Now, the first Thursday nights of the month, First Presbyterian prepares the meal and on the third Thursday, members of Calvary Baptist come to prepare the meal. Members of the soup kitchen ministry at First Baptist prepare the meals on the second, fourth and sometimes fifth Thursday of the month.

“We have had wonderful cooperation from those churches and occasionally, we will have people call in and say that they want to help with this ministry — and we are certainly delighted to have them.”

Morgan said the idea for the soup kitchen came from Gilbert. He asked the Women’s Missionary Union and the Baptist men to spearhead it.

“The people who work in this ministry realize that this is a real commitment. People take their jobs seriously. It’s a real group effort. I think that everybody who works does it because they really want to because they love the Lord and they want this ministry to be a success and so far it really has been.”

Most of the people who come to eat at the soup kitchen are just down and out, Morgan said. She has only encountered two homeless people over the four years that she has been working with the group.

“Most people just need a helping hand. Our numbers are growing as you would expect with these economic times.”

Typically they serve about 50 to 80 people every week, but, they have served as many as 100. She said they have more people coming in for meals in the winter months.

She said The People’s Church, located at 218 Gospel Time Way, serves a meal the second Tuesday of every month.

Morgan encourages the idea of other churches in the area starting up their own soup kitchen ministries.

“If a family needs a meal one night a week, who is to say they don’t need a meal another night of the week. I wouldn’t consider it competition. I would consider it as us working together,” Morgan noted.

“We believe that you not only feed a person’s belly, but you also feed his heart and his spirit.”