Sunlight streams through the open doors of the fellowship hall at Union Missionary Baptist Church in Rosedale. Long folding tables stretch across the room, and metal chairs scrape softly against the floor. A small kitchen sits to one side, its serving window overlooking the room where volunteers sort canned vegetables, bread, cereal and bags of rice into plastic bags.
Beneath that humility lives something much larger: intention, devotion and sacrifice.
Back in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the country and fear settled into daily life, friends Kelly Patrick and Cathy Hand began helping a few struggling residents in Rosedale with food. At the time, no one knew how long the pandemic would last or how deeply it would affect families already living paycheck to paycheck. Grocery shelves were emptying, jobs disappeared overnight, and anxiety spread almost as quickly as the virus itself…