December 9, 2020
Good afternoon, Shared Breakfast Volunteers and Supporters!
We hope this message finds you healthy and enjoying the spirit of the season!
Since last writing to you at the end of October, Shared Breakfast did re-start on November 15th as planned and we now have four Sundays of breakfasts behind us – hooray!
Each of these four weeks has involved a bit of experimentation as we worked to fine-tune the operation. We ultimately decided to offer the same menu every Sunday of eggs, biscuits, sausages and oatmeal placed in compostable containers that are then put in easy-to-carry paper bags as a way to simplify the operation. And this menu also seemed to be what the guests preferred.
There have been about 40 guests at each of these Sundays, (a low of 33 the first Sunday and a high of 47 two Sundays ago). We knew it would take a while for the word to get out that Shared Breakfast was back. Our sense is that there are far more homeless people in Seattle than when Shared Breakfast shut down in March but that they are more distributed across the city and that transit is more restricted than back in March.
Another factor is that the Blaine Center, the men’s shelter in the basement of the church’s parking garage that is operated for the church by Compass Housing, is now closed until early January for a remodel that will make it compliant with the City of Seattle’s guidelines for homeless shelters during the pandemic.
In light of these issues, we are going to try a pilot project this coming weekend based on an agreement with Compass Housing where Shared Breakfast volunteers will prepare 70 breakfasts in to-go boxes that will be picked up at First Church by Compass Housing staff and delivered to the residents of the Blaine Center and others who are now being housed in a different shelter located in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. If this pilot project is successful, we will explore doing this with other shelters around the city that don’t have food service on Sunday mornings.
We have been using the church’s Breeze volunteer registration software for volunteers to sign up for Shared Breakfast shifts. We are still learning how to administer this program with the goal of making it as easy as possible for volunteers. This is still a work in progress and we expect to have further updates early in the new year.
Finally, we have sufficient volunteers signed up for the various Shared Breakfast roles through mid-January. Early in January, we will distribute a new request for volunteer sign-ups to take us from mid-January through the end of March. Based on what we know today, we expect to be operating Shared Breakfast in this manner for most if not all of 2021.
Thanks for your interest and support of this important ministry!
Best Regards,
Sue Porter and Jim Schone
Co-chairs
Urban Outreach Committee
First United Methodist Church of Seattle