$500 donation for ‘Hometown Hero’ will buy meat for OK Kitchen
Photo by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Faith Smith, center, today accepted a $500 gift card from Save A Lot that will be used to purchase meat for the Orleans Koinonia Kitchen, which Smith has directed since it opened in June 2022 at Harvest Christian Fellowship.
Smith was nominated for the “Hometown Hero” award through Save A Lot by Dee Huntington, left, one of the OK Kitchen volunteers. They are joined at the Albion store by manager Dora Leader-Shuler.
Smith is one of six Hometown Heroes recognized by Save A Lot in the country. They nominees were listed on the Save A Lot social media and the top six with the most likes are receiving $500 gift cards.
Smith has served as volunteer director of the OK Kitchen since it opened in June 2022. She also led the community kitchen for more than a decade when it was based at Christ Episcopal Church.
The OK Kitchen serves several hundred meals every Thursday, and has expanded to frozen soups for people to take home.
The kitchen is gearing up to serve 600 to 800 Thanksgiving meals on Thursday from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. with many of those meals to be delivered to senior citizens and shut-ins, including more than 100 meals to Medina.
Huntington and her husband Rick volunteer almost every Thursday at the kitchen. They see how Smith and her husband Mike build up a team of volunteers and donors, and treat people with compassion.
The OK Kitchen has grown from serving about 100 meals a week in June 2022 to more than 600 now.
“Businesses, churches, civic organizations and individuals all come together to ‘love thy neighbor’ in so many tangible ways,” Mrs. Huntington said. “Resources arrive in many shapes and forms. The hours, the smiles, the kind words spoken, the resources shared bring a warm feeling of being cared for.”
Save A Lot also is frequent donor to the kitchen, bringing two car loads of food each month. Those food items are on a table for people to take with them after having a meal at Harvest Christian Fellowship.
