Los Gatos Weekly-Times Photograph by George Sakkestad Jo Greiner, food pantry coordinator at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, offers some muffins to Kendall Dawes Roberts, who enjoys a bowl of warm soup. Pantry at St. Luke's now offers lunches By Jeff Kearns When the mercury starts to drop each winter, the homeless usually start getting more attention. But at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, attention has been focused on the homeless for more than 20 years. What originally began as a crash pad for drugged-out hippies on their way from one place to the next has evolved into a program that helps almost two dozen clients get through the week without going hungry. It's not a crash pad anymore, but St. Luke's, now teamed up with other area churches, continues to be one of the only places in town where the homeless can go for a bag of groceries and some new clothes each week. And this year, hot lunches are served three days a week. "There ought to be more places like this," said Peter Lynnthorpe, eating from a Styrofoam bowl of chicken noodle soup as the rain drizzled outside. "This place is my mainstay. I was picking food out of garbage cans for a while. This usually keeps me going for a day or two." Lynnthorpe lost everything--including his job at IBM and his drivers license--five years ago when he started having seizures. After that, he found himself on the streets, and drinking. He's been sleeping in the area around the church. But Lynnthorpe says he's tired of that, and now he's been sober for more than nine weeks. "I'm trying to get control of my life again." But the program, called the St. Luke's Food Pantry, isn't just for the homeless--some Los Gatos families rely on it for food. Pantry director Jo Greiner says that the decision to start serving lunch practically made itself. "It suddenly occurred to me that this would be easy to do. I decided, 'why can't we serve soup?' " St. Luke's was the natural location, she says, because it was downtown. "This is where the clients like to hang out, and it's easy to get here. They call it the second community center." Each day the kitchen is open, Greiner also hands out grocery bags of canned food, which usually include hearty foods like chili, pork and beans, tuna, soup, and pasta, but also canned fruit and applesauce. "There's also chocolate pudding--that's an antidepressant," she quips. St. Luke's puts up most of the funding for the program, but other Churches--Skyland Congregational, Los Gatos Presbyterian and St. Mary's--also contribute food. And the Los Gatos Interfaith Outreach, which is made up of seven churches and one synagogue, also kicks in food and clothing. Last week, however, the Salvation Army ended its regular $50 weekly contribution to the program, and Greiner says she needs to find something to fill in for the missing funds. Although most of the funding comes from the Interfaith congregations, it's not always enough. In addition to food, Greiner says, other items like shampoo, soap and toilet paper are also in demand. "Whenever people go to hotels and get those little bottles of shampoo and little soaps, well, we need tons of those." Donated clothes are also available in the kitchen, but occasionally, other items, such as sleeping bags, are also donated. Hot lunches are provided Tuesdays from 10 to 11:30 a.m., Wednesdays from noon to 1 p.m., and Thursdays from 10 to 11 a.m. at St. Luke's, 20 University Ave. Alcoholics Anonymous groups also meet at the church every day. For more information, call Jo Greiner at 354-1010, or St. Luke's at 354-2195. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, February 3, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.