Monthly meal offers healthy food, time to connect with neighbors
By BECKY THOMAS
Staff Reporter
The mission is in the name: Feed Cheney.
A year after Natalie Tauzin launched the Feed Cheney Free Restaurant, the project has blossomed into a community standby. But Tauzin had organized the monthly free dinner as a yearlong pilot program, and its future is uncertain.
On the evening of Feb. 28, snow fell heavily outside the windows of the fellowship hall at the Cheney United Church of Christ, but inside a dozen round tables were nearly full. People of all ages sat around the tables, chatting with their neighbors or eating the spaghetti bolognese, salad, fresh fruit and cake served to them by volunteers. Other volunteers were across the hall, filling bags with groceries for people to take home.
At one table, a group of mostly older citizens was settling in. Some of them, like 83-year-old Wanda Fittje, are residents of Sessions Village down the street. Fittje said she came to one of the first monthly meals here last spring, and has since encouraged her friends and neighbors to come along.
“More people are coming, and I look forward to it,” Fittje said. “I write it on my calendar so I don't forget.”
Fittje, a diabetic, said she enjoys coming to Feed Cheney for the socializing as well as the healthy meal.
“I usually don't eat this much at home,” she said.
Tauzin, a Cheney resident who works as a health program specialist for Spokane Regional Health District, said she's happy with Feed Cheney's evolution. It started in February 2009 as a project for a leadership program, and no one showed up to the first dinner. Back then, Tauzin said she wanted to fill a gap in social services in Cheney. A year later, there's a regular crowd of at least 50 people at the dinners, held the last Monday of each month. In January, 88 people came for a meal and groceries, served by 44 volunteers—families, church groups, high school and Eastern Washington University students.
Though many of the people who come to Feed Cheney are low-income, there are no forms to fill out or incomes to validate. Tauzin said she wanted Feed Cheney to be about neighbors helping neighbors.
Kevin Falkner and his daughter Rhiannon volunteer at the dinner. Falkner, who also runs local Narcotics Anonymous meetings, is a former drug addict who now spends his time volunteering.
“I've got to reverse some of the negative karma,” he said. “And it's a good program for people in need. It's a lot of fun.”
Rhiannon, 9, said she usually works as a waitress, serving food to the tables.
“It's fun, just being a part of the community,” she said. “Also I get to see people that I know.”
Robyn Wyall has been to every Feed Cheney dinner but one. On Feb. 28, she sat at a table with her five young children. She said her husband is currently in school and they can't afford to take their family out to eat.
“We're not the richest people in the world, so we don't get to go out a lot,” she said.
Wyall said she remembered being embarrassed the first time she accepted help, but now she said she's just grateful.
“I don't see this as charity. This is a community event,” she said. “Everybody needs help at some point in their life. Someday I hope to be in a place where I'm on the other end.”
Wyall added that the healthy groceries they take home also helps make ends meet.
Everyone who attends Feed Cheney can bring home free groceries donated by Second Harvest. Tauzin said they distributed around 1,000 pounds of bread, protein, fresh vegetables and juice at the Feb. 28 dinner.
The Feed Cheney dinner will be held at the UCC, 423 N. Sixth St., through May, Tauzin said. At that point she hopes that volunteers will coordinate the dinner. She said the city of Cheney and local coalition Let's Move Cheney may team up to coordinate the meals as well as a Second Harvest mobile food bank that will distribute groceries from the church parking lot through the summer.
“This needs to continue,” Tauzin said. “We're just not sure yet what it will look like.”
For more information about Feed Cheney, contact Tauzin at 324-1659 or natalie.tauzin@gmail.com.
Becky Thomas can be reached at becky@cheneyfreepress.com.
Reader Comments(0)