Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen needs a new home. Could the Ashley Street Center be it?
A relationship between Wilkes Boulevard United Methodist Church and the St. Francis House Catholic Worker Community is coming to an end Oct. 1, meaning the Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen soon will be without a home after roughly a decade.
Despite the loss of a place from which to serve meals, Loaves and Fishes operations will continue. Laura Mitchell, Wilkes Boulevard church member, encouraged the Columbia City Council on Monday to find a solution that could benefit Loaves and Fishes. While the church is open to Loaves and Fishes continuing to use its kitchen space, this only is a limited extension, she said.
One option explored Monday by the council is the Ashley Street Center. Upgrades to the facility were authorized by the council Aug. 7, but it still will take time to finish upgrades, potentially two to four months.
While a majority of upgrades to the center focus on plumbing in additional restrooms, showers and laundry facilities, there also are plans to bring the facility's commercial kitchen space back up to code.
Bringing the kitchen up to code could allow Loaves and Fishes to use the space if it were enter into an agreement with the city, said City Manager De'Carlon Seewood.
"We need to make sure they are interested in that facility. Once we know they are interested, figuring out what their needs are and and how we can contract with them and help them form themselves up to be an established 501(c)(3)," he said. "Those are the steps we need to put in place."
Design-build is a streamlined process, Seewood added, answering a question from Fifth Ward Council Member Don Waterman.
There still needs to be conversations and coordination with Room at the Inn, which also serves a meal from the Ashley Street Center, said Stephanie Browning, director of Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services.
Loaves and Fishes has not yet sought social services funding through Public Health and Human Services as it does not yet have nonprofit status, but it has applied, Browning said. Conversations around Ashley Street Center usage are very preliminary and basic, she added.
"We have had all the parties out there looking at (Ashley Street), but there have been no formal discussion about Loaves and Fishes because the kitchen is not complete for one thing, and we will also have to consider the timing of when they would do their meal and when guests would come for Room at the Inn," she said.
Once a design-build team is on board, the kitchen could be prioritized said Shane Creech, public works director, answering questions from Third Ward Council Member Roy Lovelady.
"We have to get the utilities there before the other parts we are going to design-build. The commercial kitchen, because it was one, it just wasn't kept up as a commercial kitchen, so we can make those renovations while we do the other utility work we had planned to do," he said.
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Ashley Street is not an immediate solution, so other options have to be explored, said Mayor Barbara Buffaloe.
Waterman suggested Loaves and Fishes could use the commercial kitchen space at The Loop offices for food preparation, but then could serve from the Ashley Street Center.
That also is a conversation the city needs to have with Loaves and Fishes, Seewood said, again referencing there is no agreement yet between the city and Loaves and Fishes to use the Ashley Street center to prepare or serve food.
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Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Columbia's Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen needs a new home, and soon
