Meal for the Homeless

One of our church's missions projects is organizing meals for the homeless in Frankfurt on the third Sunday of every month. This weekend it was our small group's turn. We partnered with another small group from our church to do this. Our group was in charge of making a meal, while the other group would serve the meal and worship with the homeless on Sunday evening.

Friday morning, Rachel and I went grocery shopping. We were making Shepherd's Pie for about 80 people, so I had my list with approximate quantities of each ingredient. We were able to fit everything into one cart at Aldi's. Fortunately, no one questioned why we were buying 16 packages of ground beef, 20 boxes of instant potatoes, etc.. We also gathered up a few flat boxes for transporting the meal and dessert safely. We lucked out with Aldi's stocking enough quantities of our ingredients and had to make just one more stop for the frozen vegetables because Aldi's only had one bag.

Once Rachel's station wagon was filled with the food and extra boxes, we made our way to the Kopp's house. Our big cooler was very useful for the meat and vegetables to stay in overnight as none of our house refrigerators had enough space. I left Katerina the recipe with the breakdown of quantities for each large pan incase some people arrived before I got there.

When we arrived Saturday morning, the smell of onions in the house was overwhelming. The assembly line for the meal had already begun in the kitchen. The stove was covered with pans and the various ingredients were scattered on the kitchen island.

Each family made a dozen or so cupcakes and brought them for the dessert portion. The girls were excited when they saw all of the cupcakes on the table they were going to decorate. They immediately sat down and were given the task to decorate them after Hanna frosted them. Christopher sat across the table from the girls to frost and decorate.

With the construction of the first pan, we realized somewhere along the way, Rachel and I had figured out the wrong quantity of potato packages per pan. We adjusted the number of packages per pan and it worked out with the original planned amount of liquids. 

With our first pan complete, the assembly went smoothly and everyone had a job or two to do. Just once the gravy boiled over, but it was quickly cleaned up. 

We made our own Shepherd's Pie and added cheese in the potatoes. We stuck it in the oven to melt while we finished up our fourth and final pan. 

The time went quick with everyone working together to prepare the meal. It was a fun time for us and we enjoyed the social lunch afterwards. We are very thankful for all that God provides for us and grateful that we can help provide for others.

Our four pans and 108 cupcakes were safely delivered on Sunday evening.  They were greatly appreciated by all as there were no leftovers.

I figured out later how we ended up with so many potatoes. In the store, Rachel and I were determining the number of packages in each box required to make the correct potato portion per pan. The number of packages needed became the actual number of boxes we purchased. We ended up with two times the amount of packages needed, but they do not expire for a year, so we will use them for the next time we do this project.