Every Tuesday, First United Methodist Church opens its doors to serve the community a meal and foster connections. From 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., volunteers work to serve meals to people from all walks of life in the Whitewater community. Despite the many options available such as McDonald’s, Qdoba and Culver’s, First United continues to be among people’s favorites.
The weekly meal program has been around for 25 years, originally started by Sandy Hebert.
“She was looking at it as a way for the ministry to reach out to university students. She got grants for it then they ran out and things changed,” organizer Terrie Parenteau said. “We decided the meal service is absolutely aimed at the university students, but we can also serve the community too.”
Parenteau has been volunteering at the church with the program since its early days but took over as organizer in 2015.
“It’s all about service,” Partenteau said. “It’s just about sharing food. Social media has changed, exploded, and there were three people that came to the first meal. By the time Sandy was leaving, they were doing about 400 meals a week. Then when I retired 10 years ago, I took over. Now we do takeout.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the meals became available for takeout and reached a high that required the church to have 12 tables available, a number the program would like to reach again but isn’t the main focus.
“We were doing this five nights a week and did almost 20,000 meals,” Parenteau said. “I’m happy about that, and I got to participate in that. Before COVID we had 12 tables and that’s the goal. Let’s get back to that, but for now we’re having fun and the people are so much fun to serve.”
For the community, the free lunches are something they look forward to attending every week.
“I’ve been coming here for about a year,” UW-Whitewater alumna Katie Hildebrandt said. “My friends and roommates came here so I wanted to tag along and, ever since then, I’ve come almost every week that I could. It’s been awesome. It’s been really cool to meet different people, and especially all the staff here. They’re all very friendly and welcoming. It’s been super fun to see them every week and learn something new about them, their lives and why they started this so I’ve been loving it.”
Former staff member Mary Beth emphasized that “it’s not just students, it’s some people from the community. There’s lots of conversation about food insecurity and I know that’s true on campus, so if we can help with that, I think we’re doing a good thing. One gratifying thing is how students remember this when they’re gone. Students that had already graduated several years before still remember coming to the church, getting a meal, having conversations and getting to know people.”
The community can grab lunch and make new connections at First United Methodist Church every Tuesday, located at 145 S. Prairie St.