Blog #10

The last Sunday of every month from 8:30 am until 2:00 o’clock pm approximately 25 Loyola volunteers including both students and faculty prepare and serve meals in Fells Point at the Beans and Bread kitchen. Beans and Bread is both a Year of the City program as well as a meal program that serves all of the Baltimore community. Beans and Bread provides a warm cooked meal and dessert to hundreds of homeless and hungry Baltimore residents. If it was not for Loyola, Beans and Bread would not be able to stay open on Sundays. Beans and Bread was founded in 1865 by St. Vincent de Paul to help meet peoples’ basic needs.
All of the people who come to eat at Beans and Bread are of a different race, religion, age, and background. They make up not just the poor but the middle class as well. There are many people in our society today who can afford shelter and clothing but have no extra change to spare for food. Members of the Baltimore community come in shifts, are seated, served, and are welcome to make sandwiches for themselves to take with them for later. Beans and Bread allows members of the Loyola community to come together to get to know not only one another but members of the Baltimore community as well.
Serving at Beans and Bread helped open my eyes to see the amount of people who are suffering in Baltimore. Although they are lacking daily meals and some even shelter, while they were at Beans and Bread they put their worries behind them to enjoy a good meal and the company of the Loyola community. All of the people being served were so grateful for a home cooked meal and dessert. I have never received so many thank-yous in such a short period of time. Working at Beans and Bread has reminded me how grateful I am for all that I have. The time I spent there helped me to differentiate the important from the non-important necessities in life. It helped me to realize how I should not take for granted my family, friends, houses, education, clothing, and meals. The most heartbreaking thing I experienced while I was serving was a young mother and her three young children who came to eat. The kids were too young to have a worry in the world, where the look on their mother’s face was the opposite. She looked stressed and tired. All of those who came in to eat were friendly, outgoing, and funny. They would crack jokes and make small talk with all of the servers. As cliché as it might sound, “You have to make the best of what’s around.”
The Baltimore Sun’s Serving Up Hope shares a similar idea with that of Beans and Bread. Serving Up Hope is an article about husband and wife, Bridget and Galen Sampson who followed through with their dream to serve in the best interest of others. After the two were married they followed through with their plan to open up a restaurant, the Dogwood Deli. The Sampsons hired former drug users who were in rehab to cook and run the deli. Their first two employees were Tyrone Lewis and Jennifer Brock. Lewis said that, “his meeting with the Sampsons gave him the strength to enter rehab once again and stay clean.” Not only were the Sampsons running a successful business but they were also giving back to the community at the same time just as Loyola students and faculty give back to the city of Baltimore by serving meals at Beans and Bread. Galen Sampson said, “I’ve always wanted to give back, I’ve just been searching for a way to apply myself and my skills to make the most difference.” The Sampsons had the same idea as St. Vincent de Paul, to give back to the community. Sampson said, “You need to make a difference in your community.”
In 2003, Bridget Sampson received an Open Society fellowship to bring a literacy program to restrained mothers and their children. Bridget said, “I’m trying to make the world a better place, as corny as that may sound.” As corny as it does sound that is the main goal of Loyola’s Year of the City Program. As students here at Loyola we are encouraged to go out into the city of Baltimore and make a long lasting impact. It is up to us to change the city we live in. Bridget’s main goal is to open a community school where families can go to learn how to get their lives on track. The Year of the City program hosts many different organizations to do the same thing as Bridget wishes to do.
Beans and Bread, a Year of the City Program and the Dogwood Deli share a lot in common. Both eateries look out for the best interest of all Baltimore residents and make sure that they are cared for. As members of the Year of the City program here at Loyola it is left in our hands to make the best of this city and what it has to offer.