This piece is part of a larger project to document the culinary resilience of southeastern Minnesota’s Houston County during the pandemic. You can read more about my Crystal Creek Citizen-Artist Residency project here.
On a Friday in July, I pull into the parking lot of Cross of Christ Lutheran Church in Houston, MN and find a group of four women in masks and colorful aprons gathered around a table. They’re from Looney Valley Lutheran, a small church six miles outside of town, and they’re passing out sack lunches to area children as part of Meet Up & Eat Up.
Meet Up & Eat Up began in 2017 to provide free sack lunches and activities for area children twice a week during summer break. This summer, they’ve collaborated to provide lunches every Monday – Friday. From 11:15am-11:45am on weekdays, healthy lunches are available in a socially-distanced, COVID-safe way, along with a friendly greeting from volunteers.
Looney Valley Lutheran wanted to find a place to direct benevolence funds during the pandemic and asked Meet Up & Eat Up if they needed donations. Instead, the director proposed they take over a day of the week, so they built a team to serve lunches each Friday.
In chatting with these friendly volunteers, I discover that the group of women includes the Looney Valley Lutheran pastor, Kari, their church organist, and two other church members. Pastor Kari tells me that the American Legion heard about the churches coming together during COVID to serve meals and donated $1,000 to the whole thing. “Just like the loaves and fishes,” she adds.
A group from an elementary day camp walks up while I’m standing there. They’re all wearing masks as are the teachers accompanying them. I watch the well-oiled machine in action: one volunteer places a lunch and milk on a tray. After each child grabs the lunch, a volunteer squirts the tray with disinfectant and wipes it down before repeating the whole exchange with the next child.
The volunteers from Looney Valley distribute between 50-75 lunches each Friday. They tell me Wednesdays are even busier because that’s when Liz Gibson-Gasset, Houston Public Library Director, sets up a table and distributes STEAM activity kits along with the lunches. These kits promote science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics and are part of the library’s revised 2020 Summer Reading Program.
A car pulls up with a couple of children. “Hi Buddy,” Pastor Kari says. “Buddy is the dog,” she informs me. In addition to greeting most of the children by name, she knows the names of their pets as well.
Today’s menu is hoagies with ham and cheese. Each group designs their own menu as long as it includes a protein, a vegetable, and a fruit. They tell me about the time they served tortilla chips and salsa as a fun snack and a child came through the line who had never tasted salsa before. “It’s a nice way for the kids to try something their own parent maybe doesn’t give them,” one apron-clad volunteer says. It’s common for volunteers to bring extra vegetables from their garden. Earlier this week someone brought home-grown cucumbers and sliced them up for the children.
The women tell me they sent extra lunches home with a girl from the neighborhood last week. As she walks through the line now, they ask how the lunches were. “We ate them for breakfast, lunch, and sometimes even dinner!” she answers. She mentions her house is busy. “And my dad’s always at work or at the farm,” she adds.
I ask the volunteers if they know most of the children. They say they’re trying. This is only their sixth Friday. “There’s so many new people,” they say. “It’s hard to learn them all.” Two of the women are grandparents. They say having grandchildren around helps them get to know other kids.
When I ask if any church events have been cancelled, they nod. “Usually we have a picnic around the Fourth of July and that didn’t happen. A fundraiser was cancelled. And a few funerals,” one woman says.
“All in all, it’s going okay,” another woman tells me.
I ask if I can take their picture. “1…2…3…I guess smiling doesn’t matter with a mask on,” I mumble, a bit embarrassed. The women laugh and say, “Smile with your eyes, that’s what everyone’s saying now.”
As I leave, a car pulls up. And over the sound of an idling engine I hear a volunteer, no doubt smiling with her eyes, “Hi there! How many lunches would you like today?”
Meet Up & Eat Up served lunches every summer weekday through Friday, September 4th. According to a recent post, the Houston community is continuing to feed area youth with breakfast and lunch meal bundles for distance learning Wednesdays.
On October 31st, the Meet Up & Eat Up team will be back offering COVID-safe trick or treating. Masks are required, and they don’t mean Halloween masks — though you could certainly wear those, too.
Elisabeth A. Fondell is a writer, potter, and food enthusiast living in the rural Midwest. She is currently working on Food Stories From Houston County, a project documenting stories of culinary resilience in Minnesota’s southeastern-most county through the Crystal Creek Citizen-Artist Residency.
Elisabeth began focusing on place-based food writing after receiving a grant from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council to create a body of work celebrating the intersection of food and culture. See that exhibit here.
