Soup Kitchen provides warm sustenance for those in need

Every Saturday evening there are 11 or more crockpots lined up on a long table at the Spokane Dream Center Coeur d’Alene Outreach Soup Kitchen at Ninth and Best.

The soup kitchen serves warm meals to about 150 to 170 patrons each week. Some are transients, some are unemployed, and others are homeless. There are senior citizens, families with children and young adults.

Volunteers with Cherished One Ministries start arriving around 2:30 p.m. to prepare dinner for the evening.

Soups, spaghetti, meatballs, potatoes and various other pasta and rice dishes are whipped up and put in the crockpots to stay warm. There is also a table with breads and another table loaded with cookies, cakes and desserts.

Dinner is served from 5:30 until 7 p.m. by many of the same committed volunteers week after week. There is no paid staff, nor is there a church congregation to rely on.

Director and founder Kevin Kram says that most of the time, “what’s for dinner” depends upon donations from local stores, food banks, and churches.

“More than 65,000 pounds of food is used here in one year or passed out to other soup kitchens and needy families,” Kram says. “It goes out as quickly as it comes in.”

Although the kitchen receives plenty of breads, cakes and pies, Kram has a hard time getting meat and fresh vegetables.

Kram and his wife, Dannette, started their first soup kitchen in the early 1990s with two other couples. It originally was at Fourth and Harrison and stayed open for eight months.

Another soup kitchen was opened at Ninth and Best for the Vineyard Church. The kitchen was relocated to 15th and Sherman, where the Krams also started the nonprofit Cherished One Ministries in April 2001. The kitchen eventually was moved, one last time, to its present location.

Kram, a San Francisco native, has seen plenty of homeless people who did not have money to buy food. He has always felt “called” to a ministry to serve others.

It is immediately apparent that Kram has a passion for what he is doing, and an abundance of energy.

“I feel God has called me to do what I can do,” Kram says. “I consider it a privilege to be involved in this ministry,” Kram says.

When Kram is asked what the difference is between the serving side of the counter and the receiving side, he responds, “Most people are only two paychecks away from having to come here. Anyone of us could need a helping hand from time to time.”

The Clothes Closet and Food Bank are located downstairs in the Dream Center building and are run by volunteers Judith Kerrin and Jan Nordberg.

Diners are welcome to help themselves to whatever clothes they need. Coats, boots and mittens are popular items in the winter months and disappear quickly. The Food Bank stocks quick foods such as cans of beans and cup-of-soups, and toiletries such as toothpaste and toothbrushes, which are also available to those who are in need.

“Our job is to plant seeds and to show God’s love and concern. This is our social life, and these people have become our family. We learn perseverance and survival from them,” Kerrin says. “We survive by donations, and we want to thank the community for helping us show God’s love.”

There are many times when Kram is uncertain where the food and money will come from to keep the soup kitchen serving.

Kram recalls a time when a soup kitchen patron received a $100 bill as a Christmas present from relatives. He folded the bill up and placed it in Kram’s pocket.

“I had no idea how much it was until later when I took the bill out of my pocket,” Kram says.

“The Lord always seems to provide, donations keep coming in, and for this we are thankful.”