Volunteer Jackie Stewart, left, serves up a Thanksgiving lunch plate to Darrell Anderson at the Downs Memorial United Methodist Church in Emeryville, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016. The church helps those in need with a hot meal and food bag every Wednesday. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)

Oakland church serves up food and fellowship

By

Bay Area News Group

A hot meal is waiting for anyone hungry each Wednesday at Downs Memorial United Methodist Church. There’s also conversation, companionship and a little encouragement for those knocked around by life.

“It means the world to me,” Jerome Hatcher, 76, said on a recent afternoon as he settled into a lunch of turkey and dressing, collard greens and bread at the church near the Berkeley border. “The food here is fixed with love and forethought. You can tell the people who made it care because of the way it tastes.”

Hatcher just has an ice chest to keep food cold and a microwave to warm things up in his single-room apartment at 17th and Jackson streets in downtown Oakland, making him especially thankful for the weekly meal.

Read more at East Bay Times…

How to help

Note: This story was fulfilled, but you can still donate to the general fund, which will be distributed to local charities throughout the year.

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