Veritas delivers meals, winter supplies to Columbians in need
Operation: Meal Donation donated 130 meals' worth of food.
Published Nov. 18, 2008
Most Saturday nights, just before 11 p.m., the Plaza 900 Emporium is packed.
Students may not want to be grocery shopping on Saturday night. But they know if they don't use their remaining dining hall credit for the week, their points would go to waste when meal plans reset Sunday morning.
Veritas campus ministry offered an alternative to students with meals to spare on Friday afternoon. The group organized Operation: Meal Donation, a project in which students used extra meal swipes at Emporium to buy fresh fruit, chips and more for the hungry in Columbia. Students later delivered their purchases to Granny's House, St. Francis House and the hungry on the streets downtown.
A tent outside Plaza 900 served as home base, starting around 4 p.m. Veritas members and other students stopped by to record the number of leftover meals they planned to donate. Veritas staff member Austin Conner then directed them either to Emporium or to Baja Grill to buy hot meals for those downtown.
Freshman Allyson Lean donated 12 of her 14 meals for the week. She said she stocked up on food in previous weeks so she could donate most of her meals last week.
"I have plenty to eat, and I have plenty of ways to get food," Lean said. "But there are lots of people that don't, so I might as well spare a week of meals for someone else who really needs them."
Freshman Jake Wandel said he often sees hungry people around downtown. When he went to deliver hot meals on Friday, he encountered three men he had seen before, he said.
Wandel's group gave the men meals and sat down to talk with them. Everyone exchanged names, Wandel said, and one of the homeless men remembered Wandel had said hello to him before.
Wandel said he learned the homeless need more than just food.
"These people are actually people," he said. "They deserve relationships just like everybody else."
Conner said about 20 to 25 students donated 130 meals' worth of food, of which about two-thirds went to Granny's House, an after-school location for children in public housing. About one-third went to St. Francis House, a Catholic Worker home, and about seven hot meals went downtown.
"I'm very grateful and very encouraged to know that students really want to help," Conner said.
Conner said the donated food would feed kids at Granny's House for a month.
Although plans to coordinate a meal donation plan with MU Campus Dining Services did not work out, Conner said, Veritas hopes to organize more meal donation projects in the future.
Veritas will hold another service event on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. when members distribute winter survival kits to the homeless.
Veritas and its home church, The Crossing, have collected items such as socks, coats and blankets for several weeks, Conner said. Veritas members will meet at Speaker's Circle and students will take about half of the supplies to the needy on the streets. The rest of the supplies will remain at Speaker's Circle, where those in need may come and pick up items for the winter.
Junior Jeff Kieslich, who also delivered meals downtown on Friday, said his group talked with one of the homeless men about the survival kits. Kieslich said the man was excited to hear about the project, especially because he needs a pair of boots.
Conner said both the meal donations and the survival kits are part of Veritas' growing focus on meeting the needs of Columbia.
"We're getting college kids in the mood of serving," Conner said. "We hope to shine some light on these needs and get involved."
