Operations going ‘smoothly’ for Abundant Grace in first month of operations

Operations at Abundant Grace since taking over food distribution from Abundant Harvest have been in a word, “Smooth” over the last month.

That’s according to Grace United Methodist Pastor Debbie Senters, a guest of KVOE’s Newsmaker 2 segment Tuesday morning. Senters says since the church came on board to handle the operations last month, they have received a tremendous amount of support from the City of Emporia, United Way of the Flint Hills and the Emporia community, support she says has been invaluable.

Back in late December, it was announced that the church, in partnership with the city, United Way, First United Methodist Church and the Lyon County Ministerial Alliance would be taking over operations for the community food kitchen which was originally set to close back in early October following an announcement by the Emporia Rescue Mission, the agency that had overseen operations for the kitchen since its inception. Senters says when this first came about, she and her fellow leadership were not sure what to expect, but thankfully, their cook and volunteers came from Abundant Harvest and were well-experienced.

Since that time, she says they have been able to handle distributing roughly 80 to 100 meals every Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week.

Senters says they are still “playing” with the process at this time, and may continue doing so over the next month, making changes and improvements as needed. While operations have been smooth thus far, Senters says it could always be better and one thing that will help in that regard is additional volunteers, the list of responsibilities for which she detailed during her interview with KVOE Tuesday.