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Church lunch bring out the cooks
Rita Jean Shropshire, left, and Kerri Carter have food ready at First Baptish Church of Ridgeway. The church has just begun serving community meals every Saturday.
First Baptist Church of Ridgeway is bringing comfort to the community ... and it is doing it with food.
The church will hold its second free Saturday lunch from noon to 1 p.m. Saturday for anyone “who needs a meal,” said Rita Jean Shropshire.
Shropshire and Kerri Carter are planning the meal, which they said is a way to make everyday life easier on people who may have lost their jobs or who are having difficult times right now. The meals will be held each Saturday, with different groups in the church rotating meal shifts.
Shropshire said that the meals came about “through the passion of our pastor,” F. Gary Edwards. He “decided while he was in the hospital that he wanted to get (the meals) going,” so the congregation jumped in and started getting things coordinated and ready, she said.
“Each team will do something unique and different” she said. One Saturday could have an all-American lunch such as hot dogs, and the next could be spaghetti.
Shropshire said the church always has been mission-minded and the meals are just an addition to that. They said the community supported the church in the construction of its new building, and the church is trying to give back.
The women hope that people who need a meal will come, eat and find some relief for a little while. “Reaching out to help others: That’s what this is all about,” said Shropshire.
Shropshire, 71, has attended First Baptist Church since 1962. She said that both she and her husband, Howard, are retired and “enjoying it very much. I highly recommend it.” They have two daughters, Rachel Byrd of Martinsville and Joyce Wood of Cary, N.C., and two grandchildren.
Kerri Carter, 34, who has been with the church for nine years, is helping Shropshire plan the lunch. She and her husband Doug have two children, Carter, 10, and Mackenzie, 7. She is employed by Beaver and Brown Realtors, and he works with Carver Memorial Gardens.
Both women credit their mothers with helping them learn how to cook. “We had good teachers,” Shropshire said.
Each also takes a hands-off approach to cooking at home. “We both let our husbands do the cooking at home,” said Carter with a laugh. “It works really well for me,” stated Shropshire. They can’t let their men have all the credit, though.
They both said that they like to try new recipes. They favor cookbooks as well as gathering recipes. “If you eat something you like, you ask for the recipe,” said Shropshire.
“Usually I get them (recipes) from friends,” said Carter, adding that she also is not afraid to try new recipes. She said that she has found some good recipes and inspiration on cereal boxes.
The women like to make all kinds of foods and are pretty fearless in trying new things. Shropshire added that even if a cook tries a recipe and it fail, at least she tried it and that is better than nothing.
The two have put their cooking skills into practice at church, helping with a variety of meals. There is a soup luncheon after Sunday worship in the winter months and spaghetti and steak suppers throughout the year.
The “congregation really looks forward to the soup lunches,” said Shropshire. That idea also carried over to their Wednesday night service, where they added a dinner afterward. “We do a lot with food,” she added.
The congregation has published two cookbooks, and a third is in the works. Carter and Shropshire said they cook a lot from the cookbooks, trying recipies contributed by members of the congregation. They each said the members share with each other and the community, with cookbooks and other areas.
Carter said members of the church sent a team on a disaster relief mission to help cook for Southern Baptist missions. The entire crew can feed up to 40,000 people each day.
She added that when the church sent a group to Texas to help after Hurricane Ike hit, “they were only feeding 9,000 people.”
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