Homeless Meal Lifeline Shifts To Take-Out

Within 24 hours, a crucial meal-provider for the homeless found a way to keep free breakfasts flowing while helping stem the spread of COVID-19 — even if that means sacrificing some of a sense of community in the short run.

That was the urgent and well-informed word from Art Hunt and Thelma Ragsdale, the administrator and operations manager respectively, of the much loved Sunrise Cafe.

That’s the breakfast program, run like a welcoming restaurant cum counseling center, in the basement community room of St. Paul and St. James Episcopal Church at the corner of Olive and Chapel streets.

The operation has shifted gears in just 24 hours.

The program, now in its fifth year, regularly attracts about 150 homeless folks, whom the volunteers always refer to as ​“guests” as they serve them, restaurant-style.

The daily in-person meal service has been suspended in keeping with the state’s directives, communicated locally through the city’s health department, to suspend gatherings of 100 or more, said Hunt.

Thelma Ragsdale said the decision was made Wednesday, after she received a call from the city’s health department. Ragsdale has been in charge of the program and its rotating group of dedicated volunteers since its inception with Liberty Community Services. (It is now its own independent 501(C)3.)

The result: On Thursday and on Friday, when this reporter visited, instead of the 150 regulars, more like only 110 showed up.

Instead of entering the large community room in the basement of the building, the visitors were greeted under a tent set up at the Olive and Chapel corner entrance and offered hot coffee while they waited for a bag full of breakfast items, such as sandwiches, granola bars, and juice, to be brought to them.

That’s going to be the plan for the foreseeable future, said Ragsdale, as long as the virus — and an absence of information about transmission — continues to accelerate.

“We want the breakfast to be as portable as possible,” she added.

Ragsdale attributed the drop by 40 or 50 guests both to the cold weather Thursday and the rainstorm Friday morning.

Sunrise, in addition to providing needed food, has ​“also become a social hub,” said Ragsdale, as she greeted Michelle Fang and Sarah Chang, two Yale undergraduates spending the break on campus and volunteering at the cafe. On this day bringing Kind bars and bags of other stuff to re-fill the cafe’s pantry.

When the meal is served with kindness, it fosters community. The necessary COVID-19 shift means some of the community feel is lost.

That was certainly the take of Benjamin, a homeless young man who preferred not to give his last name. He’s been out on the streets for five years, he said, and a regular at the Sunrise Cafe for the last two.

“I’ve grown to know the people,” he said, as he accepted the take-out bag from Ragsdale. ​“It’s a good community place.”

Also lost in the shift to take-out is the counseling offered by Columbus House and other groups that set up tables for one-on-one sessions with the breakfasters during the morning meal.

Hunt said that several times during the pre-COVID-19 sit-down meals, Ragsdale would make announcements about new services available or other news of interest to the group. That is no longer possible, although printed materials with pertinent info were tucked into the food bags on Friday morning.

In normal times, Ragsdale observed, ​“this is a social setting for a lot of guests. It’s almost an impromptu warming center.’

Not for now. Hunt said the cafe workers will continue to abide by the new way of serving breakfast until they hear from the health department that it is okay to resume.

Of course, when that might be, no one can yet answer.

Those interested in volunteering or contributing to the program, the best place for contact and to sign up is here.