PARAGOULD — It is hard to keep Jimmy Bowman to a single table during his Sunday night dinner.
Bowman may have already eaten a hot meal, but he is continuously searching for a new seat as he greets others attending St. Mary Church’s weekly Supper on Sunday, known as SOS dinner.
“The food is great, but that is not why I come for it,” Bowman, of Paragould, said. “I come to meet people in the church and the community.”
The SOS dinner is offered from 4 to 6 p.m. each Sunday in the parish hall. It is a community-wide dinner available for anyone who is hungry or lonely.
“We started it in November to go through March for those who needed a hot meal through the winter,” said Jerry Hoepfl, one of the dinner’s coordinators. “It went so well that we decided we would continue on and make it a weekly deal all year around.
“It is totally free for whoever comes in. We don’t ask questions. We just try to take care of them and serve them.”
The meal is the result of a five-year pastoral plan. While preparing the plan, Hoepfl said parishioners were given a survey to learn what they wanted to see happen in the future.
“One question asked was what other ministries they would like to see happen,” Hoepfl said. “This just happened to be the No. 1 ministry they wanted to see happen.”
Seventy parishioners later stepped forward to help make that proposal a reality. Divided into four teams, the members are responsible for preparing one meal each month. The four teams combine to prepare a meal if there is a fifth Sunday in a month.
Pledge cards and weekly donations fund the ministry’s cost. Hoepfl said they also spoke to representatives of St. Edward Church in Texarkana and Griffin Memorial United Methodist Church in Paragould to learn how to administer the ministry.
St. Edward’s Outreach Center is open Monday through Friday for those needing lunch while Griffin Memorial offers a free lunch and devotional each Tuesday.
The first SOS dinner was held Nov. 23. Hoepfl said it began as a trial and error dinner with each meal varying. It has included soup, salad, chicken and rice, and hamburgers.
“We try to feed something that is nutritional but that is economical, too,” Hoepfl said.
LaVerne Taylor and her son Elron have been regulars since the dinner began. Taylor said they learned of the dinner at Griffin Memorial’s weekly lunch and decided to give it a try.
“I just like to come here,” the Paragould resident added. “The people are so friendly and we can talk to each other. We have made friends here and we kept on coming.”
The dinner averages between 35 to 50 diners each week. It has steadily grown from its first meal when only four people showed up.
“To be honest with you, we were really dismayed and we prayed to the Lord to be with us and help us move forward,” Hoepfl said. “We decided as a ministry that it was not about the numbers, but whoever God sent us was who we were going to take care of.”
