Dinnertime is 5:30 p.m. at the Lord’s Table every Tuesday,
Thursday and Sunday. Homeless and poor people line up ahead of time
outside the St. Mary School gym to get a free, hot meal.
Dinnertime is 5:30 p.m. at the Lord’s Table every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Homeless and poor people line up ahead of time outside the St. Mary School gym to get a free, hot meal.
Inside, volunteers have been working for two-and-a-half hours.
There is always cooking to be done, setting up tables and chairs, wrapping plasticware in napkins. Sometimes there are vegetables to chop, salads to toss, oranges to peel, cut and put in baggies. Soon there will be food to serve, with smiles and kind words. Servers often come around to tables and offer desserts to guests. Then it will all have to be cleaned up and put away by 7:30 p.m. or earlier, leaving the gym clean for the next activity.
The people who do all this vary from night to night, but some resolute regulars have been showing up once, twice, three times a week for years.
Lord’s Table director Sue Moon, the only paid staff member, says, “There are probably 20 people who come all the time.”
Danny Chavez, 41, is perhaps the most visible. Covered with tattoos from a past life, he is the doorman and one-man welcome wagon at every Lord’s Table, three nights a week. He addresses guests and new volunteers as “my brother,” “my sister,” “buddy.” When asked how he is doing, he answers cheerfully, “Taking it one day at a time,” or “Today is a new life” – phrases full of glowing optimism which also betray hard-time experience and hard-won wisdom.
Chavez declined to speak for this story, but Moon said she “wouldn’t do it without Danny.
“He’s very, very faithful, and he knows everybody,” Moon said. “He’s a phenomenal man.”
In the kitchen, Helen Doss has cooked almost every Tuesday and Thursday for 10 years.
“It’s very rewarding,” Doss said. “A soup and a piece of bread, and they treat you like angels. At home, you’re cooking an elaborate meal and the kids are complaining, ‘What is this?’
“It makes you a better person, too,” she added. “You’re more compassionate; you are less irritable, angry or mad at very little things.”
Guadalupe Padilla has joined Doss in the kitchen since July 1999.
“I was home doing nothing with my life, except doing garden work,” Padilla said. “One day I heard Father Dan (Derry, the pastor of St. Mary Catholic Parish) say we needed help at the Lord’s Table, so after Mass I went to ask him, ‘Where do I go for this Lord’s Table?’ I didn’t know anything about it. He said, ‘Just be here at 3.’ I’ve been here since.”
Retired due to a back problem, cooking doesn’t hurt Padilla’s back as long as others do the lifting.
“It’s something that maybe I was meant to do,” she said. “It’s feeding people that don’t have no place to eat. … They can’t go to your house and eat; you won’t let them in.”
Moon doesn’t like to cook herself, she said, so she is especially grateful for people like Padilla and Doss, who do.
“It amazes me that God sends people along who can do what I can’t do,” Moon said.
Supper usually features entertainment as well as sustenance, courtesy of Sue’s husband, Tim, a professional street musician. Unlike on the sidewalks of San Francisco or Santa Cruz, Tim doesn’t take tips when he sings and plays guitar, harmonica and mandolin at the Lord’s Table. He’s been doing this for nearly four years, since Sue took over management.
“It’s an audience that I really enjoy playing to,” Tim said. “To me, it’s very selfish being a musician and being able to do an old song and see a smile come over their face. … ‘Amazing Grace’ always has that effect on people. … The songs that Hank Williams has done, ‘I Saw the Light.’ … Those are just good, old gospel songs that have a great message.”
Tim has performed at homeless shelters and soup kitchens in this area since the late 1970s. As a child in the early ’60s, his accordion-playing father used to take the family to a San Jose rescue mission to play Christmas music.
Historically, washing dishes has been the least desirable job at the Lord’s Table. More than a year ago, Gilroy High School teacher David Clark tackled that job every Tuesday. After retiring in June, the 65-year-old started coming Thursdays as well. He doesn’t enjoy washing dishes at home, he said, but he does here.
“I’m a Christian, and I want to serve Jesus Christ, if you will.” Clark said. “This is one little bit of doing that.”
For the last three weeks, Clark has been joined in the dish room by 17-year-old GHS student Eric Smith.
“I try to do it every Tuesday and Thursday,” Smith said. “The Lord’s Table, I think it’s the best cause out there – in Gilroy, at least.”
Church groups take turns volunteering on Sundays, and dozens of people help out on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter – about 75 last Turkey Day – but during the week there are often just a handful.
Sue Moon says she doesn’t want people to volunteer at the Lord’s Table out of guilt, but if you still want to help, you don’t need to sign up or call ahead. Simply show up, ask what needs to be done, and then do it.
The Lord’s Table is a service of St. Joseph Family Center, an ecumenical, nonprofit organization in Gilroy. The St. Mary School gym is located on First Street at Eigleberry; volunteers should enter through the rear.
