For the past 30 years, the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen has been providing warm meals for people in need in the Lawrence community. Volunteers gather in the First Christian Church kitchen on Kentucky St. to prepare meals for the recipients.
Junior Emery Lacle said she volunteered at the LINK Kitchen to do something positive in the community that can help out the less fortunate.
Lacle said that this volunteer work has shifted her perspective on homelessness by showing her how many people in the community are impacted and how many volunteers want to help.
“[Volunteering] gives me a broader sense of how many people want to help out, because LINK Kitchen has so many volunteers,”Lacle said. “So that’s really good to see how many people are interested in supporting the homeless.”
LINK Kitchen has multiple ways of having volunteers make food for people receiving the meals. Occasionally they will have volunteers make the dishes at home, bring it to the kitchen and heat it up. Other times they have stations set up there for them to make food in the kitchen.
Sophomore Pearl Hoover said that the volunteer work can be rewarding because of the connections made with the people receiving these meals.
“The most rewarding thing is connecting with them and how appreciative they are,” Hoover said. “You’re just getting to know more people.”
Hoover said that she has had chances to interact with the people who are receiving meals in the kitchen and that people often overlook the fact that they have similar interests and things in common with the those experiencing homelessness
“You get to talk to them when they come through. They tell you about the things that they enjoy, like KU basketball, which are the same things that you like,” Hoover said.
LINK Kitchen staff member Darrell Vann said that despite the challenges that the organization can face, they try to have a positive and safe environment for everyone. They do this by having open space with staff members attending to any recipient.
“There are good days and bad days, we don’t know what these people go through, what kind of medications they’re on,” Vann said. “We just try to treat everybody fair and make sure we have a safe environment.”
Vann said that some of the misconceptions of the homeless in Lawrence can be regarding jobs and housing.
“Jobs are limited, and they don’t have housing, so a lot of them sleep on the streets,” Vann said. “It’s hard for them to keep a steady job when they don’t have a roof over their head.”
