FULTON - Two years after a trip to a Bread for the World conference in Washington, D.C. inspired the creation of the Westminster Poverty Initiative, a group of students are taking the first steps toward making a difference in the local community.
Having forged a partnership with the school's food services program, Fresh Ideas, the students this week started delivering excess food from campus meals to the Soup Kitchen to supplement its nightly offerings.
At 2 p.m. each day, WPI President Derick Dailey and several classmates load up trays of leftovers from lunch to cart over to the John C. Harris Community Center, where the Soup Kitchen serves dinner to area families from 5-6 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
"We can actually take this food and give it to people that need it, which is wonderful," said Dailey, a senior political science major from Little Rock, Ark. "They can use it that night or use it to make take-home lunches for the next day."
Soup Kitchen President Anne Erbschloe said in the short time the Westminster Poverty Initiative has been making its daily deliveries, clients already have noticed the difference it makes.
"The people really liked it - they commented on how good it was and they liked the variety," Erbschloe said, noting the offerings thus far have included lasagna, lo mein and pizza. "I think a lot of these people don't get a lot of variety."
In addition to making a difference in the kind of fare the Soup Kitchen is able to provide on a nightly basis, Westminster's contributions also have the potential to make an impact on the organization's bottom line.
"It really helps our money to go further," Erbschloe said.
Giorgio Cossich, director of Fresh Ideas food service, said this is not the first time his organization has contributed to the Soup Kitchen or similar programs, but he was impressed at Dailey's group's commitment to making it a daily donation.
"These kids are very dedicated. They come in at 2 p.m. every day and take the food over. It's a great program," Cossich said, noting his company agreed to participate because "we would have thrown (the food) away. We are strongly encouraged to do things like that."
Brad Sheppard, Westminster's director of spiritual life and chaplain and faculty advisor for the Poverty Initiative, said the new program came about "because they wanted to have an impact."
"We're putting more emphasis on helping these students be leaders in their community," Sheppard said. "It's another way for us to get integrated in the community."
Dailey said the Westminster Poverty Initiative next hopes to be able to make a difference at Wiley House, Fulton's overnight homeless shelter.
"Right now we can't use Wiley House because they don't have the facilities (to store food)," he said. "I hope in January we can do something to help them maybe get a refrigerator."