Asheville Welcome Table dinner welcomes whole community
Posted 03/02/11
Link to Asheville Citizen Times article
Welcome Table open to whole community for weekly meals
6:46 AM, Mar. 2, 201
ASHEVILLE – Crab cakes with lemon dill butter sauce, pan-seared steak with mushroom marsala gravy, full salad bar: sounds like a gourmet restaurant. But this is the type of meal found weekly at Groce United Methodist Church’s Welcome Table.
Begun in October, the Welcome Table is a free community dinner held 5-7 p.m. every Thursday at Groce United Methodist Church, 954 Tunnel Road.The dinner is a collaboration of nine East Asheville churches. The food comes from MANNA FoodBank and donations. The menu changes each week, and leftovers are delivered to either the Vets Quarters in Swannanoa or Steadfast House in Asheville.
“The Welcome Table is so anyone in the community that needs a delicious meal or companionship can participate,” said volunteer Gail Sherman. “The Welcome Table at Groce is the only one that serves an evening meal. The goal is for family involvement. Donations are accepted but not necessary to enjoy the meal.”
The kitchen is staffed by volunteers, and the main cook is Patty Kubica, who says “you can put me in front of a stove blindfolded, and I can cook.”
“We prayed for a cook,” said volunteer Amanda Pressley. Then Kubica, who has a culinary arts degree and operated a French deli and catering service for 20 years, stepped up to volunteer.
Pressley regularly volunteers with The Welcome Table and loves to cook. “I like knowing that I’m serving the community,” she said. “I’m giving something back to the community, and it’s very satisfying for me.”
Kubica says the largest expense is paper plates and napkins. She says the first week the dinner was offered, about 20 people showed up. Currently 60-70 people are served each week.
The dinner is served cafeteria-style. “I try to cook things I know everyone would like,” Kubica said.
For the pantry, Kubica needed “an area I can call my own, my little haven.” A freezer was donated, and Kubica rotates the food, regularly cleans and organizes the pantry, keeping a current inventory inside her head.
“She helps with the ordering and purchasing and planning the menu with the other chefs,” said Pastor Gerald Davis.
Davis says The Welcome Table provides the opportunity for churches to work together and connect with the community.
“The intention was to provide a meal for people who are caught in that bind of, ‘How do I feed my family?’ We also see a lot of elderly folks who want to come and be with other people.”
Volunteer Sharon Whitley says she likes to see people enjoy the food.
“They linger,” Whitley said. “It’s the fellowship as well as the food.”
Davis enjoys seeing “the people of different backgrounds and socioeconomic groups sitting down together and sharing a meal and conversation.” He overheard a diner say, “This is a warm place, and I don’t mean just the temperature
