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June 12, 2009

The Breakfast Club

Two Redwoods churches feed teenage bodies and spirits each morning

by Anitra Kitts
Special to the Presbyterian News Service

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories about congregations engaged in significant outreach and evangelism ministries, reflecting the General Assembly’s commitment to “Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide.” ― Jerry L. Van Marter

Church of the Roses Associate Pastor Kate Clayton runs the dishes through the dishwasher.

SANTA ROSA, CA — Not all teenagers have a chance to get a good breakfast before the start of a crazy, busy school day, but students who attend The Breakfast Club at two churches in the Presbytery of the Redwoods can get a full meal between the bus stop and the classroom each school day.

The concept is simple: Open the kitchen and the social hall. Staff it with volunteers who set up and cook a simple breakfast. And then clean up.

The Breakfast Club started when Elissa Stewart, a member of First Presbyterian Church in Vallejo, CA, noticed one rainy November morning 16 years ago that kids were being dropped off at the middle school across the street with no place to get out of the storm.

“Elissa came to the session and she pitched this idea that we should open our small social hall and the kitchen so kids could have a safe and dry place to wait,” said Pastor Hampton Deck. “We estimate that we’ve served 50,000 breakfasts since then.”

Roughly ten years later, The Church of the Roses in Santa Rosa, CA began their own version of the Breakfast Club, now called the MHS Breakfast Program, for students at the nearby Montgomery High school.

The two congregations are living up to the commitment made by the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) last summer to “Grow Christ’s Church Deep and Wide.”

High housing prices of the previous decade forced many middle- and low-income families into two-hour commutes from the outlying communities into the city. Now, a collapsing economy is leaving many of those household pantries empty.

“We’ve seen a jump in the number of kids being served,” said the Rev. Kate Clayton, associate pastor at The Church of the Roses and the Thursday morning team’s dishwasher.

On the surface, opening a church hall an hour before school starts seems like a small act of outreach with little consequences, but a visit quickly reveals just how important the MHS Breakfast Program is to the teens.

At The Church of the Roses, breakfast isn’t officially served until 7 a.m., but by 6:45 on a Thursday morning in early May, four or five teens are already in the door and spreading out their text books for a last-minute homework session.

Clad in the nearly universal adolescent uniform of hooded sweatshirts, blue jeans and white iPod headphones, some quietly await the installation of the coffee pot while others talk on their cell phones or kid around with the volunteers.

In the kitchen — large enough to cater meals for 500 people — volunteers Brian Smith, Margery Baur and Sue Thomas are opening boxes of frozen pepperoni pizza, cutting up fruit and lighting the grill for pancakes. At The Church of the Roses, where the Rev. John Cushman serves as pastor, the MHS Breakfast Program is staffed by five teams of four to five volunteers, with two additional volunteers serving as shoppers.

Food, which is purchased with a combination of “Two-Cents-A-Meal” funds and a local grant, is gathered from the local food bank, second-day bakeries and corporate food service kitchens.

At one table, 17-year-old Kassandra Flippin, a junior at Montgomery High School, is settling down with her 16-year-old niece, Marlo Flippin-Hall, who is also a junior at Montgomery. Kassandra is clearly grateful for The MHS Breakfast Program.

“This is so awesome,” Kassandra said as she bit into a doughnut. “Everyone here is down to earth, more in tune with what is going on with teens. I love to talk to the elderly people and joke with them.”

Volunteer and chairwoman of the congregation’s Church and World Committee Margary Baur knows that conversation works best if the teens allowed to start first.

“There’s been a lot of work over the years letting the kids know that we care,” she said as she looked out into the room now rapidly filling up with kids coming off the bus. “We let them know we are here if they want to talk, but we don’t force conversation on them.”

Shortly before the first school bell rings, Alvin Wheeler, Montgomery campus supervisor, comes into the room to check in on the teens. Wheeler solves behavior problems and works to keep the peace on campus.

“I hang out with the students, I get to know their problems,” he said.

Working at a school that reported 17 percent of its students as “economically disadvantaged” even before the economic collapse, Wheeler is very enthusiastic about the breakfast program.

Sleepy Montgomery High students visit and study before starting school.

“This place is a lot of things,” he said as the students started to walk back to campus. “It is a refuge from home. Not only is there no food for breakfast, a lot of them probably didn’t eat dinner the night before. This place is wonderful. It allows kids to be kids, to just be themselves and to make their own decisions about what to eat or what to do in a safe environment.”

Abraham Miranda, a slender young man, is quietly finishing up a pancake while seated at a table with his friends. His evaluation of the MHS Breakfast Program cuts to the point even though his shyness slows down his ability to speak in English.

“We are here because we need something to eat. There is no breakfast anywhere else. This is good for the people,” he says with a smile.

By 8 a.m., the room returns to silence as the 80 or so students head out to begin their day and the volunteers quickly clean up the remnants. 

“A lot of people have ideas about ‘program,’ but they don’t have an idea of who these kids really are,” Clayton says later over a cup of coffee in a nearby bookstore. “A lot of them already have churches. They simply need breakfast. We’re just going to feed people as long as we have the money. It’s about food and it’s about nurture.”

Sixteen years ago, a Presbyterian drove through town and noticed that kids were standing out in the rain and the mid-winter dark. Now in the social halls of two Presbyterian congregations those kids have at least a way to start the day with warmth, food and community. That’s no small thing.  

Anitra Kitts is a free-lance writer in Santa Rosa, CA, and a candidate certified as ready for ordination by Cascades Presbytery.