Chapter 19 Misfits

Sara Miles describes how the volunteers started eating lunch together each week. "I'd described the pantry from the beginning as communion. But I'd forgotten that communion was above all a meal. Those first few years at the pantry, the volunteers ate the way cooks do: poorly, in a hurry, carelessly." "We'd grab whatever was at hand and eat as we worked, until one day when the truck arrived so early there was no setup left to do, and I made a pot of soup. I had no idea how hungry we'd been. Soon I'd convinced the Food Bank to deliver all our food early, and I was cooking soup for ten, then fifteen, then twenty volunteers." (207) Soon all the volunteers were gathering for a meal together before the food pantry opened, gathering at a table together to share in a meal.