The Bellingham Community Meal Program will host its last meal in June after nearly 40 years of monthly community dinners.
Since the early 1980s, volunteers have been putting on the free community meals at the Assumption Church. Last fall, the board was tasked with meeting a range of requirements to keep the meal going, after several years of challenges with attendance, volunteerism and some safety issues. The meal is a parish program of Assumption Church.
But the board, now made up of seven members after previous challenges forming a full board, decided that it would be “too much work to continue the meal in a way” that would meet the Assumption Church’s expectations, said Board President Dan Welickovitch.
“It’s just unfortunate, but you know, everything has a time to pass, and this is just the time for the community meal, I guess,” Welickovitch said. The last three meals were poorly attended, he said. At its peak, the program served 20,000 meals in one year.
Welickovitch said the board discussed making the program its own nonprofit, and attempted to find another church or nonprofit that it could operate under, but decided that the meal took too much “labor” for a “one- to two-hour meal a month.”
[ Read more: For 40 years, a group has hosted a free meal every month. Its future is uncertain ]
Welickovitch said it wouldn’t be completely off the table to continue the meal if a nonprofit or church stepped up to allow them to operate under their umbrella, but that it would be a complicated process to move to a different organization.
“There’s still community meals out there, so not a total loss to the community, but it was a big thing for a long time, and it was a great place to go, for people of all walks of life to go meet and talk with people,” he said. “A lot of friendships were made at the meal.”
Welickovitch plugged a range of other community meals in the county: Lynden United Methodist Church hosts a meal at 5:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month and United Church of Ferndale hosts one at 4:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month. People can also receive free meals at Maple Alley Inn and the Recovery Cafe.
The program’s remaining $50,000 will likely be redirected to a similar organization when the meal wraps up, said Father Jeffrey Moore of Whatcom Catholic. He said the church would seek consent from donors to pass along the money to that organization but if they cannot get in contact with donors, they would assume intention for a similar organization.
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
