Soup kitchen users often return as volunteers

A group of about a dozen people had gathered around a picnic table in the small, fenced-in yard in North Central Columbia, smoking cigarettes, casually talking and waiting for Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen to serve another meal.

Off to the side, George Jordan stood smoking a cigarette.

“I came here to get a meal once, when times were hard,” he said as people shuffled by the small shelter, heading inside the well-lit house that for 26 years has served as a haven for those in need.

Looking much older than 22, Jordan added, “Yeah, I was homeless, once upon a time.”

Jordan came to Columbia from Atlanta between three and four years ago, he said. But around April of 2006, he found himself without a place to stay, no food, and on top of all that, he had his young niece with him. But he had heard about Loaves and Fishes, 616 Park Ave.

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said of the night he was served a meal by volunteers at the kitchen. But since then, he has had a choice. He’s taking college classes and hasn’t had to worry about a place to stay or enough to eat. But he still tries to come by at least once a week.

“I’ve been coming back and helping out when I can,” he said. “Whatever they need me to do.”

There aren’t too many places in Columbia that help out like Loaves and Fishes, Jordan said. The volunteers, he said, “pretty much break their backs,” for hungry people.

“It’s a God-given thing, because there’s a lot of homeless people in Columbia,” Jordan said. “If it wasn’t for Loaves and Fishes, there’s a lot of people wouldn’t be able to eat.”

Marquis Rochelle, 25, was there doing the same thing – giving support to people in a situation he’s been in before. Though he’s been out of work for two months, he isn’t going to the soup kitchen out of necessity. He stopped by “to check on my people,” something he tries to do often to show support.

“I’ve been to food pantries before; I’m not ashamed to say it,” he said.

But he said he’s worried about crime going up as the economy goes down. “Some people, they do what they got to do,” Rochelle said.

That’s why Loaves and Fishes is important in the community, he said. It gives people another choice, and it provides guidance. Rochelle said he’s been in trouble with the law before, but now, he wants to become a counselor because “it’s never too late too change.” With a bright smile on his face, he continued talking to others in the yard.

“I just come by to tell them to keep their heads up,” he said. “It’s tough times, but tough times build character.”