By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
WALDPORT – After serving 13,000 meals in 4½ months, the non-stop food program by the Waldport Moose Lodge for people in need came to a quiet end Wednesday.
Three volunteers stationed themselves by the front door to alert kitchen supervisor Shannon Elliott to dish up a hot serving of chicken with stuffing. But after volunteer delivery drivers took off on their rounds and the usual noon hour rush, the stream of regulars turned into a trickle.
And at 2 o’clock Elliott and lodge manager Jim Sehl quietly shut down the free service that fed thousands of people from Waldport to Yachats since March 23.
Another day, another 100 meals for anyone who asked.
“This community is amazing,” Elliott said in a moment of reflection Wednesday. “I’m amazed by the outpouring of support.”
Thursday was spent deep cleaning the lodge’s commercial kitchen. At 3 p.m. Friday the lodge will reopen for its nearly 600 members – wearing masks and socially distanced, of course – with Elliott’s now-famous meatloaf on the menu.
The lodge’s meal program started almost by accident.
The facility in the heart of downtown Waldport was forced to close March 16 under new state restrictions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. But it had freezers and refrigerators full of food.
Elliott, who was newly-hired to help in the kitchen, suggested the lodge make meals and offer them to the public for $5.
“And no one showed up,” she said.
A volunteer at Seashore Literacy Center said they had clients who could use the lunches, so the lodge donated them. Sehl decided then to give the food away and Elliott announced the effort on community Facebook pages.
Donations began pouring in. People started showing up.
“Within five days we were up to 100 meals a day,” Elliott said.
And the program was off and running.
“How in your wildest dreams can you imagine 13,000 meals coming from trying to get rid of our leftover food,” Sehl said Wednesday.
Sehl estimated the program cost $18,000, 85 percent of that covered by donations of cash and food with the lodge making up the rest. Elliott used social media to give daily updates of the effort and post a list of needed items – which often turned up the next morning.
“People would just drive up with a car full of supplies or hand us $100,” she said.
There were also significant contributions from Ray’s Market, Salty Dog restaurant, Franz Bakery, Smart Foodservice Store in Newport (formerly Cash ‘n Carry), Vickie’s Big Wheel, Yachats Community Presbyterian Church, St. Luke by the Sea Episcopal Church, Pacific Sourdough and Yachats Brewery.
Sehl tells the story of a couple who donated their $1,200 stimulus check. And of the elderly woman who arrived to pick up a meal and saying she had no food in her house. As Sehl handed her lunch, she got out her coin purse and found eight quarters to donate.
Sehl went back into the kitchen and loaded up a sack with extra food to take home.
“That one act from her … to find eight quarters for a free meal. That’s why we did this,” he said.
The lodge’s effort took a 17-day break in June as a precaution following the massive COVID-19 outbreak at Pacific Seafood in Newport, during which Sehl suffered a heart attack that required him to be flown to Good Samaritan Medical Center in Corvallis.
The months of organizing and preparing hundreds of daily meals also cemented the teamwork between Sehl and Elliott needed to keep it going. Sehl said right away he had to put Elliott in charge of the kitchen while he organized administrative and financial support.
They quickly built up trust and the occasional but necessary frank conversation.
“What do you need?” Sehl would often ask.
“This,” Elliott would reply, naming some supply.
“Done,” Sehl said.
The result is an effort that has achieved notoriety among Moose lodges across Oregon, said Sehl, and brought new awareness in Lincoln County.
“This program has opened this lodge to this community and this state,” Sehl said. “And I think the support will carry on.”
