The ThunderBlogs

Preparing a dinner party for 150 might seem daunting, but volunteers at the First Baptist Church’s shelter service have pulled off the feat every Tuesday for over a decade. The weekly event provides some of the city’s most vulnerable men and women with a hot dinner and the option of spending the night.

On the menu this past Tuesday: meat chili, garden salad, fresh bread, apple cake, coffee and iced tea.

As with every week, the meal’s success hinged on the hands, hearts and labour of nearly 50 diverse volunteers.

Just two hours before the dining hall would be teeming, the church’s industrial-sized kitchen was filled with volunteers outfitted in plastic gloves and aprons. Each had a task.

Around an island counter-top, six university-aged men and women crowded together to cut veggies and sort fruit. They chatted loudly over the whir of oven fans and rock music. Across from them, a petite woman in her 30s whipped powdered sugar in a mixing bowl. Towering beside her, a man stirred pitchers of juice. Another volunteer mopped up coffee. The machine had overflowed, again.

“We have never had a slow Tuesday,” said Pastor Bob Swann, in reference to the large crew of volunteers. He began the program in March 1999.

Most volunteers said they attend every week when possible, and many speculated that only a minority were members of the church. One made a point of describing himself as agnostic.

Among the diverse group of lawyers, graduate students, artists, and recovering addicts, there was only one man in the kitchen who was not busy working.

“I am Security International,” said the 83-year-old French Canadian man of his role at the shelter. “My job is to make sure there is no trouble.”

A regular volunteer, he had assigned himself to the role of a doorman, despite being barely 5-feet tall with a curved spine.  At 9 p.m., when the doors were scheduled to open, he would join church staff at the Burrard Street entrance. “I only let love in [to the shelter],” he said. “If you have the big D [the Devil] in your heart, don’t bother to come in.”

While he introduced himself openly, the white-haired security guard requested not to have his name published in connection to his church work.

“I do this for the Lord only,” he said. “When we give our name we are too proud of what we do.”