Breakfast for the Homeless

 Immanuel Lutheran in Pensacola, Florida serves breakfast to the homeless every Saturday morning at 8:00 am.  The line starts forming outside at 7:30.  Dave and I were here two years ago and helped serve breakfast. Since that time they have served nearly 100 people every Saturday morning. Immanuel Lutheran has hosted the breakfast for the last 10 years or so - that was as close a guess as anyone had.

Barb is checking on one of four kettles of oatmeal.  On this particular Saturday there were about 55 in for breakfast, but when the weather is a bit colder, say in the lower twenties, there will be about 100 people to feed.  Barb takes charge on the third Saturday of the month. 

All of the bread served at the breakfast is donated by Panera Bread. I am sure I have blogged about them before, but I will say again, if you're going out for a meal, support Panera Bread.

The following paragraph is taken from the Panera website.

"Day-End Dough-Nation

Through the Day-End Dough-Nation program, unsold bakery products are packaged at the end of each day and donated to local food banks and charities. In 2008, Panera Bread bakery-cafes collectively donated a retail value of more than 50 million dollars worth of bread and baked goods to charitable organizations helping to address the need for food distribution in our local communities. Many of these organizations are served by Feeding America, formerly America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization."

Pictured is our friend, Bob who often leads the breakfast devotion and prayer prior to the meal and pictured above is his lovely wife Cyndi.

Some churches have schools, some make quilts for world relief, some support missionaries in other countries, some make diapers for aids babies, some make ground blankets for soldiers far away, some crochet prayer shawls, some do home repair for the elderly, some prepare food for the homeless, and all of these dear people love the Lord and serve him with their gifts.